Re: Future of the cookbook

MJ Ray wrote:
> 
> A lot of cookbook stuff need not use PLT-specifics. The pregexp and SRFI 
> stuff will probably work just as well elsewhere. I think marking 
> PLT-specific to allow other versions later is a very good idea. Of 
> course, we should not shy away from including useful PLT-specific parts.
> 

I agree that there should be a "Scheme" cookbook as well as a 
"PLT-Scheme" cookbook. Knowing that there aren't infinite resources 
avaliable for writing these I would prefer emphasis on the latter since 
I can find a fair amount of non-PLT scheme code around the web.

That is not to say that the PLT cookbook should use gratuitous 
"PLT-only" idioms when an equivalent exists in R5RS, but I'm not aware 
of many of those (square-brackets notwithstanding). But as a working 
developer I would rather see something like case-lambda to express 
variable argument functions than the (very roughly equivalent) improper 
list method. Same goes for modules, units, structures as procedures, etc.

> Bane of my life is trying to make Scheme code portable. We may all have 
> PLT on our systems, but sometimes you have to run under something else. 
> The pigheaded refusal of some good developers to support that is still a 
> drawback of Scheme.
> 

No, at least on my part it isn't pigheadedness, it's the decision I made 
to use PLT for doing large system development. The argument has been 
made elsewhere that R5RS defines not a language but a template that can 
be expressed differently in implementation.

For instance I also use Sisc since I support a large java servlet 
project and it is easier to integrate. I certainly use the knowledge I 
have acquired from working with PLT there but I have to think about 
structuring my code differently because of it's (more limited in my 
view) module system. Turns out there is a Sisc cookbook on their wiki 
and it has a few nice recipes on it. What a great idea!


-- 
For every expert, there is an equal but opposite expert -- Arthur Clarke


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