[racket-dev] comments on "comments on learning Racket"

On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 7:58 PM, Neil Van Dyke <neil at neilvandyke.org> wrote:
> Sam Tobin-Hochstadt wrote at 04/26/2014 07:26 PM:
>
>> On this topic (which is about the "Choose a language" language that
>> DrRacket starts in when newly installed), I think we should just
>> delete all of this code, and start in "the Racket language".
>
>
> How about make Run and other very language-specific DrRacket operations
> require a "#lang" line?
>
> When the operation is invoked and there isn't a "#lang" line, pop up an
> explanatory dialog box that lets user click on button for desired language.
> Button inserts "#lang" at top of file before continuing with operation.
>
> (I like this better than having a default "#lang" line, because you'll get
> people accepting the wrong default, different people with different
> defaults, etc.)

This isn't quite about the issue I'm talking about, although I think
this is a good idea for helping people deal with (some) problems with
having the wrong language.

What I'm referring to is that when you download DrRacket for the first
time, and open it, it puts you in a situation where nothing works,
until you choose a language. I think we should get rid of that, and
switch to defaulting to the current "Racket language".

Sam