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

Sam Tobin-Hochstadt wrote at 04/26/2014 08:06 PM:
> 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".

Yes, but I thought what I described addresses that problem as well. (And 
avoids making a new default from the first run, which I think is 
problematic.)

Neil V.