On Mon, Oct 16, 2000 at 08:45:00AM -0700, Stephen A. Witt wrote: > On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, Thomas Guettler wrote: > > > Hi all! > > > > I want to learn lisp or scheme, too. I have read the faqs at > > www.faqs.org, and I am still not convinced which language I should > > start to learn. Scheme is much smaller, Common Lisp has more > > libraries.... > > > > What I want to do: I want to make some electronic music. I am dreaming > > of accessing the ALSA-sequencer via lisp. A song could be a list of > > parts, and a part a list of notes... > > > > Can some help me choosing a language (lisp/scheme). > > Book-recommendations are welcome! > > > > A few years ago I was working on an experimental expert system project > using an expert system shell that was written in LISP. All of the actions > that happened when a rule fired were LISP functions. It was great and I > loved programming in that language. I would probably recommend Scheme as I > think it is an improvement to LISP in some ways, most dealing with the > structure of the language. The problem with Scheme is that there haven't > been practical interpreter/compilers for it, unlike LISP which has more > mature tools for doing practical programming. By "practical" I mean having > useful libraries for doing real work, such as Python or Perl have.
Hi Stephen. As long that there is a binding to "normal" libraries written in C, I think I will have all I am searching for. > Scheme > seems to be a little more academic and frankly, functional computer > lanuguages (like Scheme or LISP) are not in vogue right now. I think > object oriented languages are the "thing" right now, so Java and C++ seem > to be very popular. I programmed a little LISP some years ago. I had the idea to start to learn it when I worked with XML. In XML you have one element which can elements, in Lisp you have a list of lists. > But I must admit it has probably been a couple of > years since I searched around for a good Scheme interpreter/compiler. I > was hoping that Guile would become that and maybe it has. I suppose I'll > have to check back with that project and see where its at. I heard good things from Guile. > In terms of a book recommendation, one of the classics (IMHO) of computer > science uses Scheme as its example language. It is "Structure and > Interpretation of Computer Programs". Great book. I will look at it. > You realize, I hope, that you will have to use Emacs if you intend to > program in LISP or Scheme. It is simply the only editor that will do :). Dad, why do we hide from the police? They use emacs, son, we use vi .... (No, was a joke, I use emacs where ever I can. (emacs -nw)) -- Thomas Guettler Office: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> www.interface-business.de Private:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://yi.org/guettli