[plt-scheme] An Editors Tale

Tim, look for the message on Spy from Daniel.
He worked on the Python extension.

Here is my take on Python after working through
this "exercise": Python pretends to be an OO-based
language yet it is really a hashtable-based that
creates an illusion of OO-oriented programming.
For simple programs, this works all right but
most Pythonistas seem to actually exploit the
translucent nature of objects and classes. It
is a hopeless task to reason about modules or
program pieces in this language.

My original hope was that we could (1) provide
Pythonistas with a good GUI PDE and (2) attract
some of them to work on our Python implementation
and to import some of Python's numerous libraries.

Daniel and Philippe had a short paper at Scheme 2003.
We will put it on NU's publication's web site and
advertise it. They have also submitted a blurb to
Python 2004. We'll see whether the Pythonistas
take to it.

If you do have left-over time, take a look at the
libraries that you'd use most in other projects
and see whether you can improve them.

Thanks for the offer and interest -- Matthias




On Jan 26, 2004, at 2:41 PM, Tim Johnson wrote:

>   For list-related administrative tasks:
>   http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>
> * Matthias Felleisen <matthias at ccs.neu.edu> [040126 10:16]:
>>  For list-related administrative tasks:
>>  http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>>
>>
>> On Jan 26, 2004, at 12:50 PM, Noel Welsh wrote:
>>
>>>  For list-related administrative tasks:
>>>  http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>>>
>>> --- Grant Miner <mine0057 at mrs.umn.edu> wrote:
>>>> Obviously we need more man power, one
>>>> way to get that is to
>>>> get the Python programmers.  So we have a chicken
>>>> and egg problem.
>>>
>>> Do you mean convert the Python programmers to Scheme?
>>> That is certainly a noble goal ;-)
>>
>> Hey we put an entire Python-like language into DrScheme for that 
>> reason
>> and it didn't attract one Pythonista. (But I am not sure I want them
>> now that I understand that language better.)
>
>    :-) I am not a python programmer, but I am a programmer who *does*
>        program in python, as well as C/C++ and rebol. Because rebol 
> seems
>        to be the most influenced by lisp and scheme, I've been
>        attracted to scheme.... and I hope that Matthias won't consider
>        me 'tainted' by python.
>
>   So, Matthias:
>   Since I have not fully followed this thread and I'd like
>   to learn scheme, what can I do for you? Certainly, I owe
>   the open-source world a great deal debt.
>
>   Since I own my business and am my own boss, oftentimes I can deliver
>   'product' in whatever language I please, but othertimes, the client
>   specifically requests a particular language (and python or perl is
>   most often requested). The client ends up paying for it because I
>   can code more efficiently in rebol, and it is my anticipation that
>   my efficiencies would improve even more with scheme.
>
> -- 
> Tim Johnson <tim at johnsons-web.com>
>       http://www.alaska-internet-solutions.com