[plt-scheme] Scheme or Lisp?

* Gordon Weakliem <gweakliem at oddpost.com> [041005 08:00]:
> 
> On Oct 4, 2004, at 11:15 PM, Tim Johnson wrote: 
> > I would welcome comments that would aid me in making a choice
> > between learning scheme or lisp. 
> 
> I was in the same position a little over a year ago, and I chose
> Scheme, and specifically PLT primarily for a few reasons: 
>   
> 1) Pretty good XML support (SSAX/SXML) 2) Simpler language 3)
> Implementations 
>   
> The last point is very important if you use Windows, the
> non-commercial Common Lisps tend not to support Windows well.  PLT,
> OTOH, has a number of features that cater to Windows users. 
>   
> > All of the languages that I currently work in have robust resources
> > for CGI, database access and web content rendering. It appears that
> > both scheme and lisp communities provide such resources as well. 
> 
> DB support is the area where PLT is
> weakest, IMO, but that's primarily a function of the number of
> database implementations that you can target.  Support is especially
> weak for the commercial databases, but it's certainly not impossible,
> you just have to be willing to write a little C.  
   
    Mysql is my bread-and-butter right now, I note that there are
    interfaces for both PTL and Bigloo. I note from some documentation
    that such interfaces are not necessarily mature, but appear to offer
    an entry point that could be built on.

    Good discussion! I really appreciate it.
    thanks
    tim

-- 
Tim Johnson <tim at johnsons-web.com>
      http://www.alaska-internet-solutions.com