[racket] are people using untyped/snooze?

Danny Yoo wrote at 08/16/2011 03:48 PM:
> I've heard a little feedback from people on /r/programming of people
> who really want to see a CMS for Racket, or something "real" that they
>   

I think the best thing to point them at right now is the PLT tools that 
are implemented in Racket, and point out that they have been used in 
classrooms for a decade.

It's easy to show a toy example of a blogging system in Racket, for 
example, and a few people have, but that's not satisfying to someone 
looking for either a full-blown CMS or a demonstration of real-world 
scalability.

Sadly, the server-based systems for which Racket is currently used tend 
to be non-public, such as the university course-scheduling system that 
Untyped developed.  I think we have to fall back on pointing out that 
Arc on top of PLT runs Hacker News.  And the PLaneT server, which I 
assume is in Racket, but is not high-volume.

> One of the folks tried out Snooze from PLaneT, and it didn't compile
> cleanly, and they gave up.
>   

I don't know about this particular error, but there is a long history of 
PLaneT packages giving install-time errors.  Sometimes (as Carl Eastlund 
pointed out to me recently), it's because they're requiring a specific, 
older version.  But there have been a few different causes.  And 
sometimes the errors have been in PLaneT packages that are popular for 
other PLaneT packages to depend upon.

I suspect a reason that these errors were allowed to persist so long is 
that they're usually only noticeable at time of the PLaneT package 
install.  If you re-run your program that "require"d the PLaneT package, 
after it failed (or simply gave non-fatal error messages) due to PLaneT 
install-time problems, you see no sign of trouble now that the PLaneT 
package is installed.

I think it's been mentioned before, but automated testing of PLaneT 
packages by the PLaneT server/repository would be nice.  For starters, 
just see whether they can be compiled and "require"d without error (in a 
sandbox).  Would be nice to test multiple Racket versions.  Later, as we 
get standardized entry point for running test suites, the repository 
could even detect regressions with new Racket versions and with 
combinations of different versions of PLaneT packages on which a package 
depends.  Regressions in a supposedly backward-compatible version, or 
even any test failure at all, could even trigger suspension of the 
version from new use until a human approves it.  This is something 
doable on the repository side, and something that simply won't get done 
if we're expecting individual package authors to do it for their packages.

-- 
http://www.neilvandyke.org/