[plt-dev] language dialog

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Robby Findler
<robby at eecs.northwestern.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 1:17 PM, Carl Eastlund <carl.eastlund at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Could we populate the Language dialog with popular choices (PLT
>> Scheme, R6RS Scheme, etc.) that all just dump the user into what we
>> know as the Module language, but with the right first line provided?
>> It seems like what users want is split up differently from how we've
>> implemented it, so why not present a menu split up the way users want
>> and keep the implementation split up the way we find convenient.
>
> I considered this, but am afraid that it may be too big of a change
> for some of our users at this point. Also, I'm afraid that we don't
> yet have (up to snuff) #lang-based versions of all of our languages.

I'm not proposing removing any of our current options, nor using the
"bait and switch" technique for any language except the ones that we
only support via #lang.  The student languages should stay separate
from Module, and anyone who wants Module should be able to get it (by
that or another descriptive name).  But some languages people are
looking for, that they might not think fall under "Module", I don't
see any reason not to provide by name: PLT Scheme, Typed Scheme, R6RS,
etc.

> So, I think we want to leave the 'old way' around for a little while
> longer, but make it less and less emphasized. Eventually, we can
> either have a dialog like that or maybe even something more fancy and
> better integrated with the source (which would mean dropping the
> language dialog entirely).

--Carl