Subject: Re: Emacs in CL
From: rpw3@rigden.engr.sgi.com (Rob Warnock)
Date: 12 Mar 2001 11:02:13 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
Message-ID: <98iabl$3ct1e$1@fido.engr.sgi.com>
[Following up to comp.lang.scheme *only*, since I strongly doubt many
people in c.l.l. care about obsolete Schemes.]

David Bakhash  <cadet@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
+---------------
| I dislike Guile partly because of how slow it is, but mostly because
| of how inconsistent I found the libraries to be (at least when I
| loaded up SND).  I couldn't stand trying to find all of the basic
| things I'd need to load up just to do simple stuff.
...
| Sorry I can't be more precise.  It's been a while.  I don't have much
| to compare it to, as the only other Scheme systems I've used are SIOD
| (in Festival -- pretty bad) and MIT Scheme, going way back.
+---------------

Try MzScheme <URL:http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/packages/mzscheme/index.html>,
the engine underneath MrEd and DrScheme <URL:http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/
packages/drscheme/>. I suspect you'll find it much more to your liking.

Take some time to study the object system and the "units with signatures"
module system <URL:http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/packages/doc/mzscheme/
node54.htm>. On the one hand, they do have some limits compared to CLOS &
CL-style packages; on the other hand the notions of "units" or even just
multiple global namespaces <URL:http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/packages/
doc/mzscheme/node91.htm> show that "experimentation" [a subtopic of this
long "Scheme vs. CL" thread] *can* take you well *beyond* CL, in some
directions.

+---------------
| BTW, anyone here ever tinker with the Scheme that's in Gimp?  How does 
| that one compare?
+---------------

It's basically SIOD (which you say above you've used), the syntax of
which is based on the now-obsolete R3RS plus numerous idiosyncratic
extensions. Not that SIOD's all that bad, say, for light-weight scripting.
But it's not anything I'd build a major application on (like The Gimp).
For that I'd use PLT Scheme, for sure.


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, 31-2-510		rpw3@sgi.com
SGI Network Engineering		<URL:http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/>
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