First I’d like to express my immense gratitude for your contributions to the Racket community. Beautiful Racket greatly enhanced my understanding of language-oriented programming and macros in general.
TL;DR: Racket is the most inspiring language and ecosystem I have ever used. I use it not just because it does the job, but because I’m having an absolute blast writing code in it, something that hasn’t happened to me since uhh.. x86 macro-assembler, or Pascal. All it needs is a simpler, localized, more practical intro page for existing programmers, and lots of promotion. Oh and maybe more speed, but it’s fast enough for my use. Now, the wall of text: From my perspective the only barrier of entry to Racket is the documentation: it is very clear, detailed and well-written, but to certain of my students they can also be quite obscure, especially to those who don’t have comp-sci background and those whose first language isn’t English. The best example is the few pages about continuations. For quite a while I could not understand what they were about from the Racket docs, and it took quite a bit of web crawling to find meaningful examples of their use. I also found the pages about macros lacking simple examples, and it’s not until Beautiful Racket that I finally found very basic uses. My opinion doesn’t count for much, but from my experience and the feedback I got from my employees and students, the main Racket site and docs is missing a very basic presentation of the language. Something really clear, concise, that does not use comp-sci or advanced vocabulary. The best example that comes to my mind is say, Go’s tour pages - in 20 languages. I understand there is Matthew’s Quick Introduction on the main page, but somehow I’m imagining a smaller, quicker ‘batteries included’, practical intro, for programmers familiar with other languages : 1) how to read/write from/to a file 2) how to display text on the screen 3) how to use conditionals and loops 4) how to write a function 5) how to compile functions into modules The hyperpolyglot.org/lisp ultra concise, parallel presentation of languages helped me more than once make sense of a new language. If only Racket had something similar for say, C, Java, Python and Racket. That way Python and Java programmers (perhaps Racket’s main target in the production env) could get a very quick sense of how things work. Localisation would also go a long way towards bringing Racket to the world. I’m currently in France and Racket is completely unknown here, yet sorely needed when I see the slow-motion Java disaster going on in every engineering school and every company. Dex > On Jul 21, 2019, at 10:46 PM, Matthew Butterick <m...@mbtype.com> wrote: > > I'm not a member of Racket management. But I spend a lot of time using & > promoting Racket. Most recently, I taught the Beautiful Racket Workshop as > part of Racket Week 2019. > > I care a lot about Racket — the technology, but especially the human > community that makes it possible. > > I've heard from a few people that events before, during, or after Racket Week > left them questioning Racket's commitment to making everyone feel welcome. > And to be honest, it wasn't the first time. > > This saddens me. It's not consistent with my own values. It's not what I want > Racket to stand for. I want everyone to feel welcome, wanted, and valued. > > In a nearby thread, Matthew Flatt talked about the importance of "reducing > barriers" in a technical sense. But it matters in a community sense too, of > course. > > If Racket is putting up social barriers — even unwittingly — that are > frustrating newcomers (or existing members) then we ought to be able to hear > this with an open mind & heart, and make adjustments. This is our duty as > empathetic, moral members of a community. > > I'm not sure what I can do to improve this situation. I'm open to > suggestions. I can at least offer the following (I would rather risk looking > foolish than doing nothing): > > > 1) If you've had an experience where the Racket community made you feel less > than totally welcomed, I invite you to add it to this thread, or contact me > privately. If you want details of your story shared, in some anonymized way, > I can do that. > > I recognize the irony of making this offer on the racket-users mailing list — > those who've had a bad experience are likely long gone. But I also know there > are people here who, like me, want to help make Racket better, even on rough > days. > > > 2) Gently, I suggest that we work together to reduce the volatility of these > conversations. I know that some feel that these matters are better handled > away from the racket-users list. But this is counterproductive: it amounts to > saying that we should feel free to harvest the benefits of > Racket-the-technology while avoiding obligations to Racket-the-community. As > a matter of logic and ethics, I can't see how they are divisible. > > > 3) Today, I'm a reasonably well-adjusted adult (or at least my dog thinks > so). But a long time ago, I was a fat and dorky and smart kid. For years, I > was physically and verbally bullied at school. It was relentless and > terrifying. But as was true for a lot of kids like me during that era, > computers were a refuge. They never judged me. They rewarded my curiosity. > > I mention this not to put my experience on a footing with anyone else's. But > it reminds me that while our contributions to Racket may be public, what > Racket MEANS to each of us is necessarily private. Right now, there are > people in our community for whom Racket is a bright spot in difficult times. > If you haven't been there yet — you will. > > To my mind, discussing these matters openly is about preserving the paramount > virtue of a community based on sharing knowledge: to accept everyone just as > they are. When we're falling short in this regard, we shouldn't avoid these > facts, lest we make a virtue of ignorance. Or if we can't do this, and people > bypass Racket in preference to other communities, then we'll have no one to > blame but ourselves. > > With much gratitude to everyone who makes Racket possible. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Racket Users" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/racket-users/8964B1F7-C0A5-44BA-AFE3-FF87E038F3CE%40mbtype.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Racket Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/racket-users/AF9C51F2-6970-46C2-A575-30626DA116D2%40gmail.com.
