[plt-scheme] Re: More pedagogic stuff

On Aug 13, 2008, at 1:12 PM, Geoff Knauth wrote:

> I haven't run into any Schemers out here yet :-( , but I'll wear my  
> TeachScheme! 2000 T-shirt at the big reception tomorrow night in  
> Dodger Stadium.  I have found some Smalltalk folks who love Seaside  
> who think it blows away Ruby on Rails.  I know RoR, I need to look  
> at Seaside, and I'm curious what a DrScheme-based webkit along  
> those lines would look like.


   We were there first.

   At least as far as continuation-based web servers and systematic  
design of web (server side) scripts is concerned. Shriram and I wrote  
various paper with various co-authors on this topic from 98 thru  
2003. SK resumed later and continued the trend. (Okay silly puns;  
find out what they mean.) See

  http://www.ccs.neu.edu/scheme/pubs/

for details.

   We blew it when it came to turning all this into a plain old,  
quick prototyping framework. (Well I had the vision but I didn't go  
to the doctor ...)

> There's a tension between "build it quickly" (RoR) and "build it  
> well" (HtDP).

   Yes and no. On the surface there is a tension. But if you follow  
HtDP to its extreme (not in print) you will naturally build  
abstractions (aka frameworks and libraries and friends) that make it  
possible to build even faster than the "quick guys" and at least as  
well.

-- Matthias