gregory weber writes:
>
> The mailing list does have its quiet periods, but occasionally there's a
> flurry of messages. Probably the extended quiet is because people are so
> happy with STk.
>
I like to think like that ;-)
> I have no idea how many users there are, but I remember that some time ago
> Erick asked people to let him know if they were using it, and for what, so
> he could drum up more funds for support, etc. I'm sorry I didn't reply to
> this earlier, but here goes, belatedly:
>
> I use STk for an artificial intelligence project involving an agent
> (simulated robot) with the task of building and maintaining a wall in an
> environment (called "Brickworld") where there are hostile agents and
> random processes that tend to destroy the wall. Further information
> is available at http://php.indiana.edu/~gdweber/bw-project/index.html
Thanks for this. Be sure I will keep it in a safe place, when I need
to defend my work.
>
> I use Scheme for the project because it is an elegant and powerful
> language. I use STk in particular because it has a sophisticated object
> system (STklos) and interface to Tk which enables me to "see" what's going
> on in the simulated world.
>
> My only complaint (hitherto unvoiced) is that STk is not as fast as some
> other Scheme systems. But even here there is a saving grace, because the
> socket facility makes it easy to interact with another process. I
> typically run two Scheme processes for this project: STk handles the
> environment, while compute-intensive agents run in Petite Chez Scheme.
> That's the free, interpreted version of Chez Scheme.
> I found this arrangement gave me a 5x speedup.
The next release of STk (which will be called STklos by the way, since
it is a completely different program) will be faster than actual STk (something
like 4x and 5x, sometimes more). Perhaps you will not have anymore to
use sockets for your program (this is particularly important that I'm
not sure to have support for sockets in the first STklos release :-).
I hope to be able to distribute a first release before the end of this
millennium.
-- Erick
Received on Thu Nov 30 2000 - 14:17:03 CET