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Subject: Re: Scheme, was Re: [geda-user] Thoughts on gschem UI
From: John Doty <jpd AT noqsi DOT com>
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Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2012 13:24:05 -0700
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On Nov 18, 2012, at 9:35 AM, Dave McGuire wrote:

> Scheme has got to be the
> simplest, cleanest programming language I've ever seen.  If a supposedly
> "technical" person cannot wrap his/her brain around Scheme, then perhaps
> a different line of work is in order.

One of the problems, I think, is that Guile is a maximal Scheme implementation, with a huge built-in vocabulary. Most users will never use 3/4 of it, although which 3/4 will depend on the user. The official Guile documents don't really distinguish between "everyday use" and "fancy stuff".

This is an area where I think Python got it right. Bare Python isn't much good for anything, but it's easy to learn simply because there's not much to it. Then you import this and that and suddenly you have a language well tuned to a specific application area. Guile has too much specialized stuff in the core, only resorting to optional modules for the fanciest stuff.

A few years ago, I attempted to document how simple Guile is for gnetlist scripting. See gnetlist_scheme_tutorial.html in your local docs. Unfortunately, the online wiki version doesn't seem to render properly: much of the actual Scheme code disappears :(

It could use another chapter showing a simple, but complete, netlister.

John Doty              Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
http://www.noqsi.com/
jpd AT noqsi DOT com