[plt-scheme] Re: On C#

On 5/22/07, Todd O'Bryan <toddobryan at mac.com> wrote:
> No one suggested Python? The amount of built-in reflection in the
> language is remarkable...
>

Python and Perl were both talked briefly:
1 - Perl syntax is terrible and PLTScheme supports perl regexp anyway.
2 - Python is unknown to everybody in the group, including me, and I
tried to dismiss Python because I'm really trying to force PLT Scheme.
:-) (sorry for the bias)

> Todd
>
> On Tue, 2007-05-22 at 17:03 +0100, Paulo J. Matos wrote:
> > Ok, so let me explain the context so that everyone understands the issue.
> >
> > Here in University of Southampton, Group of Dependable Systems and
> > Software Engineering we have a Software Engineering Special Interest
> > Group where we meet every week. This week we talked about
> > [requirements] traceability in agile methods. One of the suggestions
> > that came up was that we could develop a traceability tool which helps
> > user trace requirements/tests/code using linking identifiers, so that
> > you can for example say: This code implements this requirement or,
> > this test was developed to test this code in mind. Now guess you
> > change a requirement, the tool might alert you that you need to change
> > the code at that point, etc etc.
> >
> > Well, as in a discussion lots of issues came to mind, one of them was
> > the programming language we could use.
> > (the resulting opinions from the 6 that were present)
> > - Java was down immediately since most of us didn't want to mess with Java.
> > - C/C++ was too low level for some.
> > - Haskell, Dylan were too mystic and 'mathematical' for others.
> > - C# came up as a possibility
> >
> > Then I suggested PLTScheme or if people are against it, Ocaml.
> >
> > After a lot of discussion Ocaml was scratched. C# and PLTScheme were
> > now up to discussion. I was mentioning that I had implemented some IDE
> > features in an internal tool and that I had tried to implement them in
> > PLTScheme without success mainly because I do not know the API and I
> > was not yet able to find examples to guide me through implementing
> > stuff like that. The main feature which was complained about was:
> > - Facility to get a list of class methods when you do "(send class "
> >
> > This is not really important but what I saw is that it is _really_
> > important for them who are not used to programming in Scheme. However,
> > most, but not all, are inclined to C#, not because they know the
> > language but because the IDE has this feature.
> >
> > It's quite hard to beat such argument. No matter saying that's not the
> > important thing. So, I told them I would try to look at the code and
> > see if it's easy to implement and I'll do a PLTScheme demo next week
> > so that they could see the IDE and some of the language features of
> > interest to us.
> >
> > In fact, in a way I understand them, because most of them have used in
> > their classes during their degree Eclipse, or .NET and now if they
> > don't see an IDE full of class trees, way to generate code by filling
> > a couple of boxes etc, they get scared. One of the colleagues which
> > also supports Scheme because he wants to learn something new said that
> > as PhD students we need to research new possibilities instead of
> > getting stuck to the traditional ways but that remark didn't help to
> > the discussion, anyway.
> >
> > Another thing I mentioned, probably a year ago but can't find it in
> > the mailing list would be to have a live helper frame showing up help
> > on the current keyword. Still I'm having a lot to do and I'm looking
> > at some syntax-case publications at the moment so trying to look
> > deeply into the DrScheme tools API or source code is unfortunately a
> > no go.
> >
> > So, that's it.
> >
> > Sorry for posting this to the wrong list but I was probably thinking
> > about plt-scheme and just wrote it in the sender instead of the
> > recipients name. Frustrating thing is, I noticed immediately after
> > pressing send. I still tried discard but gmail was too fast and sent
> > the email anyway.
> >
> > Oh well... :)
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Paulo Matos
> >
> > On 5/22/07, Grant Rettke <grettke at acm.org> wrote:
> > > It is so hard to accept that with which we are not familiar.
> > >
> > > I can't stand reading dark on light for example...as you well know :) (thanks!)
> > >
> > > On 5/22/07, Robby Findler <robby at cs.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> > > > Still, you tantalize us :)
> > > >
> > > > Are the missing niceties the usual things people complain about (tab
> > > > completion, for example), or are they new ones?
> > > >
> > > > Robby
> > > > _________________________________________________
> > > >   For list-related administrative tasks:
> > > >   http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Paulo Jorge Matos - pocm at soton.ac.uk
> > http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/pocm
> > PhD Student @ ECS
> > University of Southampton, UK
> > _________________________________________________
> >   For list-related administrative tasks:
> >   http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>
>
>
>


-- 
Paulo Jorge Matos - pocm at soton.ac.uk
http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/pocm
PhD Student @ ECS
University of Southampton, UK