Re: Scheme community

From: Dr.R.F.Wolpert <wolpert_at_uark.edu>
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 16:04:41 -0600

>>Also sprach Walter Moreira:
>Moreover, how big is the scheme community? I think it is small or at least
>very disperse. This looks very strange for me. If you look at Python, for
>example, with a clear and simple semantic, close to scheme; why do you think
>it has a incredible success? Why scheme isn't so successful? Has anybody an
>answer?

Perhaps an O'Reilly book on scheme would help -- there isn't much in terms of
readable, enjoyable introductory printed material around. And nice books like
Harvey and Wright's _Simply Scheme_ need a non-standard startup script,
which doesn't go down well with all flavours of scheme. (And it isn't in a
popular series.)

And that might be another problem -- how to choose "your" scheme... there is
just one Perl and one Python. But we choose between STk, Bigloo, gambit, scm,
etc. etc. (no particular order, or omission), but I can't use my bigloo script
without
some work with stk, or vice versa, for example (and both come from
"kaolin.unice.fr")
We all like diversity to some degree, but students and beginners don't.

Having a prominent scheme in Linux, for example, would help too: the gimp uses
scheme. This should be made better known. (And is another reason for a good
O'Reilly
book.)

Let's ask O'Reilly to have a Scheme book!

Rembrandt

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Received on Wed Nov 29 2000 - 23:07:00 CET