[racket] CAM

I'm writing a DSL for CAM --- (computer-aided-manufacturing), which primarily involves generating gcode for CNC machines (lathes, milling machines, 5-axis laser cutters, etc.). Do you guys know if anybody has done any CAM work in Racket, Scheme, Lisp, etc.? Perhaps one of these 30-day wonders from the PLTgames contest. :-) Actually, I'd be interested in hearing about any language used as a framework for CAM (I have no patience for point-and-click CAM software, but I'm only interested in DSL CAM systems).

I dropped Scheme and went with FASM instead. I'm still interested in Scheme/Racket, but I can't think of any practical use for it at this time.

I would be very dubious of using Racket to implement a DSL. Racket seems too complicated for most non-programmers to learn, and a DSL is supposedly for non-programmers to use (machinists are intelligent people, but there is a reason why they became machinists rather than programmers --- they just aren't interested in computer science). Also, most DSLs will need a custom data type, which implies that assembly-language is needed. What exactly does Racket or Scheme offer in regard to implementing a DSL? I admit that I don't know much about Racket or Scheme. These languages are supposed to be good for DSL implementation though, and I'm totally not getting why I would want to use them rather than good old assembly-language.


Message: 2
>Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 13:01:05 +0000
>From: Tim Brown <tim.brown at cityc.co.uk>
>To: Matthias Felleisen <matthias at ccs.neu.edu>, Tim Brown
>    <tim.brown at timb.net>
>Cc: users at racket-lang.org
>Subject: Re: [racket] variables within macros
>Message-ID: <50FD3C11.9060101 at cityc.co.uk>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
>On 20/01/13 22:26, Matthias Felleisen wrote:
>> On Jan 20, 2013, at 6:35 AM, Tim Brown wrote:
>>>>> On Jan 18, 2013, at 12:36 PM, Tim Brown wrote:
>>>>>> A concrete example is that I am trying to write a #lang language.
>>>>>
>>>>> Honestly, I would never ever try to write a #lang first.
>>>>> That's more than most people want.
>>>
>>> This "project" was prompted by plt-games.com,
>>
>> (What is that? Link doesn't work.)
>
>Sorry Matthias, I could have sworn there was a hyphen in there:
>http://www.pltgames.com/
>
>
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