[plt-scheme] A Couple of Questions on DrScheme/Mzscheme

Let me offer a subjective response to a subjective question.

I think many languages aspire to Scheme's/Lisp's power. Regardless, I think
that Scheme/Lisp won't ever be a language for the masses. The reasons, I
think, are related. Languages aspire to Scheme/Lisp because of their
ability to abstract concepts. When, however, other languages adopt those
abstractions, they give them clothing appropriate to the adopting language.
In other words, they give them syntactic sugar--and I think that's very
important.

Scheme/Lisp is able abstract so well because it's able to introduce new
mini-languages very well. But it takes more effort to read a lot of code
which is basically written in one or more mini-languages--especially since
those mini-languages are rarely documented, etc. Note that my point isn't
that you *can't* read or understand--just that it takes a lot more effort.
As an example, I'd invite people to read a lot of Python-based web code vs
a lot of Scheme-based web code. Python uses syntactic elements to signal
the use of various things like for loops and lists. That in turn means you
don't have to stop and think about many of the pieces quite as much. That
in turn means that it takes less time/effort to understand a chunk of code.

I think I can even offer an example from within Scheme/Lisp. Think about
creating old-style macros with back-quote--with and without the syntactic
sugar:

  `(some a ,b , at c)

  (quote (list (quote some) (unquote b) (unquote-splicing c)))

Don't worry about whether or not the second version is a correct
expression; it doesn't matter. The point is simply how much syntactic sugar
can help you see the pattern of use immediately and easily. And the larger
the pattern--eg, the larger the macro in this case--the more that sugar
helps. Scheme/Lisp, of course, offer very little of that kind of help;
back-quote is a rare example.

So on the whole I think that Scheme/Lisp require more effort from the
programmer. I think that some people find that cost worthwhile, but most
don't. And I don't think that's a problem that can (or maybe even should)
be fixed from within the language; if you did, you wouldn't have Scheme
anymore--you'd have Python.

So no, I don't think Scheme/Lisp will ever be wildly popular. To me the
only goal would be to demonstrate to the *better* programmers what they get
in exchange for the cost. Maybe they'll see it as a good trade (I do), and
maybe they won't--but thinking that the masses should or would adopt
Scheme/Lisp to me is a goal that will never come to pass.

Michael.