[plt-scheme] Re: from hell to paradise

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 08:29:58AM -0500, Henk Boom wrote:
> 2009/2/18 Matthias Felleisen <matthias at ccs.neu.edu>:
> >
> > On Feb 18, 2009, at 6:23 AM, Paulo J. Matos wrote:
> >
> >> I was just thinking "gosh with so many people if each wrote a
> >> real-world application of scheme to 'real life' we would have a
> >> 'book'".
> >
> >
> > That has been my thinking for a while now. What if we
> > set up an svn repository and provided a mechanism for
> > "literate" programming so that you can describe your
> > stuff and then make it available for others to edit?
> 
> I think the biggest help are accessible blog posts demonstrating why
> and how to use PLT-Scheme for specific things. Even after learning
> scheme, I only started using PLT Scheme for web development after
> reading this series:
> 
> http://www.scheme.dk/blog/2007/01/introduction-to-web-development-with.html

And as a result you discovered a number of serious problems in using PLT 
Scheme for we design.  One of the real contributions you made by doing 
this is your series of posts on this mailing list about these 
difficulties.  They got people to take the problems seriously and to do 
something about them.  I suspect PLT Scheme is friendlier to web site 
implementation now than it was before you started.

Are you still using it for your site?

Ny the way, another mostly functional language that's been used for 
a serious web site is OCaml.

-- hendrik

> 
> Blog posts are friendly, and eminently google-able. I find they also
> illustrate the presence of a community more effectively than a central
> site. For some reason, "This guy is using it!" seems stronger than
> "There is apparently some group of people using it".

And if they're well-thought out, revised occasionally, and include 
references to later developments, they can be quite useful.

-- hendrik