[racket] Using Scheme to design C programs

If you understand HtDP, work thru PLAI (PLT's language course). 
Then look at EOPL (Dan's language course). You will learn to 
replicate Jon's thinking then and you will appreciate the power
that comes with Racket. The list is helpful. Post questions, but
not solutions to problems -- Matthias





On Sep 2, 2010, at 8:00 PM, Mike G. wrote:

> This may be old hat to some, but I just saw this short essay on Reddit and
> thought it was interesting.  From 2000, the author writes about having
> used Scheme to design a C program that he could not have written from
> scratch.
> 
> It also reminded me of some of the ideas from HtDP about programming as
> algebra and "the importance of a structured, systematic approach to
> programming".  Perhaps not coincidentally, the author is/was a grad
> student under Dan Friedman, sometimes co-author with Matthias Felleisen.
> 
> It makes me eager to get back to learning Racket.
> 
> « What I had been learning in my Programming Language course, however, was
> that I really could manage my own control flow if I wanted.  Furthermore,
> I could start with a simpler, more naive program and basically DERIVE the
> sophisticated one through a series of correctness-preserving program
> transformations.  This is where Scheme really won.  Because of its
> extremely algorithmic---almost mathematical---nature, Scheme can be easily
> manipulated in a sort of algebraic style.  One can follow a series of
> rewrite rules (just about blindly) to transform a program into another
> form with some desirable property.  This was exactly what I needed. »
> 
> "Is Scheme Faster than C?"
> http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~jsobel/c455-c511.updated.txt
> 
> found via http://www.reddit.com/r/scheme/comments/d7h3j/
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