[racket] #lang

Eli writes:

>> I'd rather have my
>> students' files start with
>> #lang bsl
>> or 
>> #lang isll
>> or something, as long as my students don't need to SEE that.
> 
> -1.

I presume the part you don't like is "my students don't need to SEE that"?

I'm not suggesting that the choice of language should be invisible and inaccessible, only that the #lang syntax should be invisible much (if not all) of the time.

For example, there might be a display near the top of the DrRacket window saying at all times what language we're in, without the word "#lang".  If you want to change it, you click on that display and type in a new language choice, still without the word "#lang".  If it's not recognized, you get an immediate error message.  The language choice menu, if it still exists, would be just a shortcut for filling in one of several guaranteed-to-exist languages.  You NEVER see the #lang line in the Definitions pane.

>> Could we have a menu option in DrRacket to hide or show the #lang
>> line (perhaps in a separate pane)?
> 
> -1.
> 
> As Shriram said, this is similar to how the language choice is encoded
> in current teaching language files, and it leads to bad surprises --
> weird errors if you do add a `#lang' in the part that you do see

That's a simple syntax error: "#lang blah" isn't legal syntax inside a module, in any language that I know of.  One could give it a clear, informative error message:  in racket, "You have two #lang lines in the same source file," and in DrRacket, something like "You've already specified the language in the language display at the top of the window".

However, people are much less likely to put a "#lang" into the part that they do see if they've never seen the word "#lang", as would be true of DrRacket-using students.  Those that use a vanilla text editor can clearly see that they've got two of them.

> surprises when you edit the file outside of DrRacket

See above.

> , and confusions when you copy-paste the code and send it to someone else.

Yes, copy-and-paste is a problem.  If you copy-and-paste from one DrRacket window into another, they both presumably have (hidden) #lang lines, so things should be clear (either they're in the same language and everything works, or they're explicitly in different languages and you deserve what you get).  If you copy-and-paste from DrRacket into a text file and then use that text file in racket or DrRacket, DrRacket will have to use its default language (see below).

>> For the benefit of beginning students, I'd like to keep the language
>> selection menu, but its effect would be to alter the (hidden) #lang
>> line.
> 
> IME, the language dialog is currently a major source of confusion.  It
> tempts people to choose languages that they shouldn't choose

I'm not wedded to it myself, but I think it can be clearer and more transparent than it is now.  I'm suggesting getting rid of "Use the language declared in the source", because that would ALWAYS be true.  The menu, if it continues to exist, would be just shortcuts to some suggested languages.  And if everything on this menu can also be invoked from #lang, that list could be trimmed down to only the ones used by significant numbers of beginners: say, the HtDP and DeinProgramm teaching languages and racket.

The one UI drawback to this proposal (that I see) is that if one is currently in a language that isn't on the menu, nothing in the menu would be checked.  One could switch from it to a "standard" language using the menu but wouldn't be able to get back using the menu; you'd need to click the language display and type in the language name.  However, this would only affect people already using a language that's not in the menu, which means they must have used the manual override before, and they should be able to use it again.

> BTW, to put these negatives in more perspective -- a *lot* of work has
> been put to make the `#lang' lines very simple -- easy to remember,
> and easy to write.  So I view removing them from the user's explicit
> reach and instead leaving it for some gui to generate as something
> that goes against the whole idea of `#lang'.

Shriram writes:
> If you really wanted to accommodate all comers,
> 
> - no #lang => language is BSL
> - all other languages need their own #lang line

Yes, that makes some sense.  Philosophically, one would rather have the default language be racket -- I can imagine the howls of protest from somebody like Elliott who starts up racket or DrRacket, types in the first example from some non-HtDP Scheme book, and gets an error message because it's not in BSL.  But as a teacher, I'd want BSL to be extremely easy to get to.

> (Of course I'm glossing over the #lang bsl =/= BSL from menu, which is
> a real annoyance.)

How much difference is there?  Can we fix it?



Stephen Bloch
sbloch at adelphi.edu