[racket] DrRacket needs work

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 4:41 AM, Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk at cs.brown.edu> wrote:
>> i do it in emacs usually if we are talking about being able to
>> evaluate chunks.
>
> In short, you're expecting that DrRacket's functionality is going to
> include a traditional IDE AND Emacs?  Is that a reasonable demand?

what i think is a reasonable demand is to have tools that really do
help me get things done. the fact that neither eclipse nor emacs is
perfect is no excuse for anything else to not improve. (nor is it an
excuse for them to not improve, too. there are repls for eclipse, as i
mentioned, so it isn't the extreme dichotomy you write here. now if
those are *good* repls or not, i don't know off the top of my head,
but they exist.)

and, get things done in way that makes sense to me. (modulo me having
to learn something different yet worthwhile, as you suggest below.

> Here is a useful little puzzle.  I strongly urge you to do this before
> you go forward in this thread.  It involves writing only a very small
> program, and it is an enlightening experience.
> At that point you will fully understand Bloch's post and why DrRacket
> does not do what you seem to want it to do and why DrRacket's position
> is an eminently sensible one.

ok, that would be a good thing for me to try see if i get a different
perspective, thanks. i'll attempt to find time to do it.

having said that, "eminently sensible" is in the eye of the beholder.
after all, racket didn't have static type checking for most of its
life, no? i am not saying it is or is not eminent in my own view, i am
pointing out that it is pretty subjective so you can't actually call
it "eminently sensible" since to some people it might actually be
eminently a pain in the ass.

sincerely.