Re: [racket-dev] Revising Racket's home page
On Tue, Aug 20 2013, Neil Van Dyke wrote: Sam Tobin-Hochstadt wrote at 08/20/2013 09:52 AM: Can you say more about why this is? Is it the pictures? Yes, I scroll down the page and I see pictures and a simple picture language, and it seems to be using them to introduce some pretty simple and familiar concepts, so I assume it's for children. FWIW, i get the exact same feeling. I also share the opinion that the page looks overcrowded and, personally, find it easier to click than to scroll and try to find what i want in a big page. To add to the list of purely subjective opinions and wishes, i would also like to see a pure hackers-looking page i could point prejudiced colleagues to, with little emphasis on the educational aspects of Racket. Just my two cents, jao -- Nature uses as little as possible of anything. -Johannes Kepler, astronomer (1571-1630) _ Racket Developers list: http://lists.racket-lang.org/dev
Re: [racket-dev] Revising Racket's home page
On Wed, Aug 21 2013, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt wrote: On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 5:30 PM, Jose A. Ortega Ruiz j...@gnu.org wrote: On Tue, Aug 20 2013, Neil Van Dyke wrote: Sam Tobin-Hochstadt wrote at 08/20/2013 09:52 AM: Can you say more about why this is? Is it the pictures? Yes, I scroll down the page and I see pictures and a simple picture language, and it seems to be using them to introduce some pretty simple and familiar concepts, so I assume it's for children. FWIW, i get the exact same feeling. I think this is a sign that we need to revise the tutorial, not that we need to not link to it. For example, Quick is the only tutorial that doesn't assume the reader knows Lisp notation. Probably... i mostly agree with Eli's comments on this regard in his answer, and his proposals include (and most of the time improve) all the ideas i've come up with. To add to the list of purely subjective opinions and wishes, i would also like to see a pure hackers-looking page i could point prejudiced colleagues to, with little emphasis on the educational aspects of Racket. Relative to the page I've presented, what would be removed? The Quick tutorial (but see above) and all or some of the books? The Redex book is certainly advanced, but I don't know if it has the appeal you're looking for. Anything else? I like the idea (Eli's again, i think) of giving the books less prominence using popups for the text. At any rate, i'd make community links appear before the book descriptions. The big fonts (and i realize this is such a subjective thing that it sounds a bit silly) also somehow transmit that non-hackish impression i get. Also, i find the Go further columns a bit too verbose: a simple list of the most remarkable features, with hyperlinks, would occupy less space and, IMHO, be more informative: if i know what you're talking about there, i don't need the brief surrounding explanations, and, if i don't, i'm not sure those blurbs are gonna help (and i'm worried that to someone not knowing you guys and your amazing work all these years they could sound a bit like a buzzwordy add). Perhaps a better way to explain what i have in mind when i say pure hackers looking page is to give you the example of http://ocaml.org and, to a lesser degree, http://haskell.org. All that said, i'm not sure i would trust my own taste as a webpage designer :-) Cheers, jao -- Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592) _ Racket Developers list: http://lists.racket-lang.org/dev
Re: [racket-dev] proposal for moving to packages
On Mon, May 20 2013, Matthew Flatt wrote: [...] Some drawbacks to omitting source are immediately apparent: - Users will be less able to make source changes on their systems to help us debug. Having the binary form of a package installed does not preclude upgrading to a source package. So, we could ask a user to use the package manager to install the source form of, say, the drracket package, and then try out a change. In that way, users can still help, but it will be less convenient. - Users will be less able to read installed code as examples. Our source code is now easily available via the web interfaces at http://git.racket-lang.org/ and GitHub, so users can always look there, instead. FWIW (and i know it's not much, but anyway), this will be a big loss for Geiser users, who right know can jump to any core function source with a single keystroke and without leaving the editor. IME, there's a huge difference between that and having to switch to a web browser to find it, both when learning or programming new applications. Here's hope that down the line there'll be binary+source packages that end users can install with the same ease as today. Cheers, jao -- Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. _ Racket Developers list: http://lists.racket-lang.org/dev
Re: [racket-dev] new logo
On Sun, Feb 12 2012, David Van Horn wrote: [...] Maybe an 'r' in different scripts can be considered? For example, an R rotunda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_rotunda FWIW, I like this quite a bit. I think if you put this on the new background, you'd have a winner. For the very little it's worth, i agree. To my taste, it's the most elegant option by far. jao -- How many Zen Buddhist does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change it and one not to change it. _ Racket Developers list: http://lists.racket-lang.org/dev
Re: [racket-dev] try the GRacket2 branch
On Sat, Oct 30 2010, Matthew Flatt wrote: At Fri, 29 Oct 2010 01:04:02 +0200, Jose A. Ortega Ruiz wrote: In a build from a checkout of a few minutes ago, drracket dies on me when i try to resize its window, with the following message to the console: The program 'unknown' received an X Window System error. This probably reflects a bug in the program. The error was 'BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)'. (Details: serial 4084 error_code 8 request_code 59 minor_code 0) (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously; that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it. To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.) I've tried to pass --sync to drracket, but it complains that the flag is not recognized. This is on a debian unstable box with gtk 2.20.1. This happens consistently for you, I guess? I tried a Debian Unstable install (with Gtk 2.20.1), and it worked ok for me, so I'm not sure what's different. Yes, it happens all the time. I just tried with plain gracket, and it displays an error that might be more informative (this, again, happens when i try to resize the main window): ./gracket make-bytes: out of memory making byte string of length 17169122912 === context === /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/draw/private/bitmap.rkt:66:2 /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/class-internal.rkt:3596:0: continue-make-super /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/gtk/dc.rkt:27:2 /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/class-internal.rkt:3546:0: continue-make-object /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/class-internal.rkt:3468:2: make-object /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/common/backing-dc.rkt:106:4: get-cr method in backing-dc% /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/draw/private/dc.rkt:623:4: set-clipping-rect method in dc% /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wxme/text.rkt:4933:2: refresh method in text% /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wxme/editor-canvas.rkt:586:2: redraw method in editor-canvas% /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wxme/text.rkt:2503:2: set-max-width method in text% /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/more-scheme.rkt:149:2: call-with-break-parameterization /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/more-scheme.rkt:265:2: call-with-exception-handler /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/more-scheme.rkt:149:2: call-with-break-parameterization /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/more-scheme.rkt:265:2: call-with-exception-handler /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/common/queue.rkt:359:7 /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/common/queue.rkt:396:26 make-bytes: out of memory making byte string of length 17169122912 === context === /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/draw/private/bitmap.rkt:66:2 /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/class-internal.rkt:3596:0: continue-make-super /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/gtk/dc.rkt:27:2 /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/class-internal.rkt:3546:0: continue-make-object /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/class-internal.rkt:3468:2: make-object /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/common/backing-dc.rkt:106:4: get-cr method in backing-dc% /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/common/canvas-mixin.rkt:137:13 /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/common/queue.rkt:359:7 /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/common/queue.rkt:396:26 on-size in window%: expected argument of type exact integer in [0, 1]; given 65535 === context === /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/mrwindow.rkt:144:17: on-size method in ...private/mrwindow.rkt:127:4 /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/more-scheme.rkt:149:2: call-with-break-parameterization /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/racket/private/more-scheme.rkt:265:2: call-with-exception-handler /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/common/queue.rkt:359:7 /home/jao/src/scheme/racket/collects/mred/private/wx/common/queue.rkt:396:26 Instead of `--sync', you could provide the `-synchronous' option (i.e, the old X-style flag, which GRacket supports for compatibility with the old version and translates to `--sync' for Gtk). Combining that flag with gdb, you might be able to get some information. I'll try that, thanks. I will try also with another window manager: this is using sawfish, and could be its fault. jao _ For list-related administrative tasks: http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/dev
Re: [racket-dev] try the GRacket2 branch
Hi, In a build from a checkout of a few minutes ago, drracket dies on me when i try to resize its window, with the following message to the console: The program 'unknown' received an X Window System error. This probably reflects a bug in the program. The error was 'BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)'. (Details: serial 4084 error_code 8 request_code 59 minor_code 0) (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously; that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it. To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.) I've tried to pass --sync to drracket, but it complains that the flag is not recognized. This is on a debian unstable box with gtk 2.20.1. Cheers, jao _ For list-related administrative tasks: http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/dev
