[plt-dev] #lang: the stake in Dracula's heart?

On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 5:02 PM, Eli Barzilay <eli at barzilay.org> wrote:
> On Feb  1, Carl Eastlund wrote:
>>
>> Tool registration is stored with each collection or planet package,
>> not in a preference file.
>
> (Same point applies.)

There is no way around the fact that without Dracula installed, ACL2
files have no meaning to DrScheme.

>> As for using two ".lisp" language levels, well, automatic detection
>> just wouldn't work.  You'd have to manually switch each time you
>> opened a file in whichever one wasn't the current default.  There's
>> no real way around this.
>
> I think that it's generally healthier to think about it in terms of
> running some file through mzscheme.  There's no drscheme around to ask
> you what you mean.

So in place of "manually switch", think "supply a command-line argument".

>> > One concrete suggestion that would be easy to work with now is
>> > something like (using r6rs as an example):
>> >
>> >  #lang indirect "foo.scm" r6rs
>> >
>> > which would make the reader parse "foo.scm" using the r6rs syntax.
>> > To make it a little more convenient to use, DrScheme could have some
>> > special treatment of such a language -- like presenting you with a
>> > buffer that has
>> >
>> >   #lang r6rs
>> >   ...the contents of "foo.scm"...
>> >
>> > with a different color for the #lang line or something like that.
>> > This is still inconvnient in the sense that it requires an actual file
>> > to work, but there's probably some way to go around this, like
>> >
>> >  #lang indirect STDIN r6rs
>> >
>> > or something.
>>
>> It sounds like the above solves the problem of "what do you run when
>> you open a non-#lang file" by declaring that you can't, you must
>> always open a #lang file.  Meaning a user trying to run a set of ACL2
>> libraries could only run them in DrScheme by creating a "#lang
>> indirect" file for each one they wanted to try.
>
> DrScheme can be made to pretend (relatively easily, I think) that some
> "#lang"-less buffer really has the right "#lang indirect STDIN r6rs"
> contents, or something like that.  In any case, I don't consider it
> important to think about drscheme-specific problems -- I believe that
> finding a good solution at the mzscheme level is bound to lead to a
> drscheme solution.

If mzscheme recognized something like DrScheme tools -- more
lightweight and GUI-free, but still a form of library registry --
registering file extensions should be easy.

>> > Using something like that I can imagine extending mzscheme with a
>> > command line flag for the module to run.  Something like:
>> >
>> >  mzscheme --program '#lang scheme (+ 1 2)'
>> >
>> > might work nicely -- and assuming that, you can finally do
>> >
>> >  mzscheme --program '#lang indirect "file.scm" r6rs' file.scm
>> >
>> > which could then be sugared into some
>> >
>> >  mzscheme --program-language r6rs file.scm
>>
>> Or, if we have non-#lang language levels, how about:
>> mzscheme --language-level acl2 "file.lisp"
>
> I think that you're missing the point.  What I was suggesting in all
> of the above is that (translating back to acl2):
>
>  mzscheme --program-language acl2 file.lisp
>
> becomes shorthand for
>
>  mzscheme --program '#lang indirect "file.lisp" acl2' file.lisp
>
> which makes mzscheme run AS IF it was requiring a file with this
> contents:
>
>  #lang indirect "file.lisp" acl2
>
> (only as if -- no actual file), and finally that will read from
> "file.lisp" using the acl2 language reader.
>
> So -- no "#lang" needed in the file; the language specification is
> completely done with a flag.

Aha, I see.  That works.

--Carl