[plt-scheme] xxx chooses MzScheme as preferred language

From: Paulo J. Matos (pocmatos at gmail.com)
Date: Mon May 29 18:40:53 EDT 2006

It would be nice to have a xxx linux distribution like Linspire which
instead of MzScheme chose Haskell.
http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1506
The source: http://urchin.earth.li/pipermail/debian-haskell/2006-May/000169.html

My questions is: what would be in your oppinion the 'yes' and 'no's of
a linux distribution based on MzScheme?

My 2cents which are just coming to my mind:
Yes:
- core programming would be simpler than in most distributions;
- we could have easy access to the C interface through FFI;
- it's very easy to build plugin-based infrastructures using units,
which might be helpful for all sorts of stuff like
network/package/window managers;

No:
- unless we could compile all the stuff and make it quick, the stuff
would be slow, still that would not make users away (see Gentoo and
python);
- since we do not yet have nice, complete bindings to Qt or GTK2, or
to current Wxwindows for that matter, any GUI might be ugly;
- probably not many contributors. Scheme community seems small with
sparse efforts. Don't know haskell community at all, but hope they get
to something.

There are probably more Yes and No's but not coming to me right now.
Still, I don't think my Yes are kinda like 'why would be a haskell
based distro worse than a mzscheme based distro?' even if that's true
for some reason. That raises another question: why, if for any reason,
anyone creates a haskell based/python based or even mzscheme based
distro? Are there really any advantages between these high-level
languages for linux distros?

Well, just some thoughts...

Cheers,
-- 
Paulo Jorge Matos - pocm at sat inesc-id pt
Web: http://sat.inesc-id.pt/~pocm
Computer and Software Engineering
INESC-ID - SAT Group


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