[plt-dev] Fwd: [plt-scheme] How to add a new language to DrScheme?

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 10:08 AM, Eli Barzilay <eli at barzilay.org> wrote:
>
>> The description of how to customize and install the server/client
>> packages?  And, given that they're of the "customize and install"
>> persuasion, how do you plan to add it to the standard distribution?
>> Would you have people go in and hack the sources we give them to get
>> the server up and running?
>
> Yes, of course -- you need to write some library that is to be
> distributed no matter what.  It's easier to provide a template
> collection that people customize than providing an explanation of how
> to write a collection from scratch; and it's also easier on the
> customizer's side.
>
>
>> I don't think that really illustrates how to make a new language for
>> DrScheme, nor a great way to distribute libraries.
>
> Why not?
>
>> When can we get an implementation of the handin stuff as units or
>> something else parameterized so people can instantiate it without
>> hacking the provided sources?
>
> You can't -- even if it's put into units, you still need to distribute
> *something* that will instantiate it.

Consider the web server as an example.  We do not provide code for the
web server that defines its configuration values and tell the user to
"edit collects/web-server/config.ss".  Instead, we provide a framework
for the web server that is parameterized over its configuration.  The
user can then write a program or run a command line utility that fills
in those parameters and runs the web server.  We provide the entire
framework; the user writes one or a few lines to kick it off, rather
than editing files in our provided collection tree.

-- 
Carl Eastlund