[plt-scheme] Question result is not true or false: (void)

Grem, you are jumping all over the place with your speculations and  
comments.

PLT Scheme's _and_ (which isn't a function, not even in Ikarus)  
supports the kind of sequencing that the OP requests. It's **other**  
languages supported in DrScheme that don't.

The very fact that anyone starts with I/O for program design is  
serious grounds for doubts. Nobody can truly succeed that way. So all  
the other comments are right on.

-- Matthias



On Dec 29, 2009, at 10:53 AM, Gregory Marton wrote:

>> In answer to your specific question, "question result is not true  
>> or false" is because you're using "and" or "cond" on the result of  
>> "display", which HAS no result.
>
> Good, but it doesn't look at why he was trying to do that.
>
>> The fact that you're asking questions about the result of "display"  
>> indicates a more fundamental issue: how do you represent a Sudoku  
>> board?
>
> That's a pretty big leap.
>
> He said (and (display stuff) (newline)) to indicate that he wanted  
> both of these to get done.  They both have side effects and no  
> return value, and let's give him the benefit of the doubt on  
> understanding that.
>
> The and function could do this.  It could be a fine way to do things  
> for and to try to evaluate both of its arguments, try to coerce  
> their non-existant results to a boolean, and keep going happily  
> along.  I'm glad PLT doesn't do this, but it's a possible way to  
> proceed.
>
> What this reader doesn't know is the right word in the PLT  
> vocabulary for "do this thing first, then do this other thing, and I  
> don't care about the results because they don't exist anyway".  He's  
> probably coming from an imperative language, and grasping for  
> something like
>  (begin (display "foo")
>         (newline))
>
> You all are quite right, of course, that thinking about  
> representation will help him eventually, but it'll never get and to  
> do begin's job, and whatever other problems you may see with his  
> code, he's not to be faulted
> for not knowing enough of PLT's vocabulary, or for presuming that  
> and might do the trick: in other Schemes, (e.g., Guile, Ikarus) it  
> does!
>
> Grem
>
>
>> On Dec 27, 2009, at 12:51 PM, Jayto wrote:
>>> I am trying to design a sudokku game in dr scheme, but it is proving
>>> difficult.
>>> First what I did was draw out the game with this code:
>> There's your problem: you started thinking about I/O FIRST, rather  
>> than LAST.
>> What are the important questions to ask about a Sudoku board?   
>> "What, if anything, is in this position?"  "Does this board violate  
>> any constraints?" "Could I put this value into this position  
>> without violating any constraints?"  Things like that.  Oh, and  
>> "draw the board" too -- but that's probably the least-interesting  
>> one.
>> Next, you need to choose an internal representation, from which it  
>> should be reasonably easy to answer all of the above questions.   
>> Test your representation and the basic functions that operate on  
>> it.  Note that in Scheme, you CAN test these functions without  
>> worrying about I/O first, because whatever you choose as an  
>> internal representation, Scheme will probably have SOME readable  
>> representation for it -- not spiffy graphics, but enough that you  
>> can tell whether the answers are right.
>> Then figure out how to identify legal vs. illegal moves, fill in a  
>> number, and all that stuff.  Test these functions, again without  
>> worrying about visual formatting.
>> Once you have all this stuff working, THEN you can write a "draw"  
>> function that converts an internal representation into an  
>> attractive graphical representation.  And you can write functions  
>> to handle user input, and all that stuff.  But the user interface  
>> really should be separate from the rules of the game (go look up  
>> "model-view separation", which governs how almost all modern GUI- 
>> based programs are written).
>> Stephen Bloch
>> sbloch at adelphi.edu_________________________________________________
>> For list-related administrative tasks:
>> http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>>
>
> -- 
> ------ __@   Gregory A. Marton                 http://csail.mit.edu/~gremio
> --- _`\<,_                                                      
> 617-775-3005
> -- (*)/ (*)        Basically it's hopeless, but there's always hope!
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-~~~~~~~~_~~~_~~~~~v~~~~^^^^~~~~~--~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ 
> +~~~~~~~
>
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