Re: [racket-users] Beginning of the end for googlegroups?
On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 05:48:32PM -0700, Jack Rosenthal wrote: > On Fri, 25 Jan 2019 at 23:59 +0100, 'Paulo Matos' via Racket Users wrote: > > Not sure of the size of the mailing list but I wonder if this is the > > beginning of the end and we should have instead a plan B. > > We could always go back to Mailman... > > Or, if someone started working on a Racket-based alternative to Mailman, > I'm certain people around here would be very excited to use it. For archival reason, I claim that some people would not be excited by such choice. Mailman, for better or worse, has bigger user base, thus should have such minutia as security problems resolved faster and maybe in better ways. Of course if someone writes a replacement and it is indeed better than original, that would be another thing. Perhaps the effort should start with explaining what should be improved. (Note: I am not involved in any way, I am just saying - overally, I am excited about improving software - for example, can it be claimed that Racket-based clone of Mailman would be more secure? would deal better with spammorz, i.e. treat them worse than original? etc). -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [racket-users] Re: FYI Racket & DrRacket tagged projects on GitHub
On Sat, Jan 12, 2019 at 02:49:18PM -0500, Hendrik Boom wrote: > On Sat, Jan 12, 2019 at 06:44:26PM +0100, Tomasz Rola wrote: [...] > > Text-form is a lot easier to read in security-conscious text-only email > readers. Sure. It also has this nice property of delivering information without distraction :-). There is a small security risk with text, too - it is about embedding terminal codes which cause execution by terminal emulator, but as far as I can say, xterm has that issue solved. [...] > I tried org-mode. More unobvious keystroke sequences to follow, in Myself, I treat org files as just text files - learned few keystrokes (entering time and some list manipulations) but most of other things (like tables) I do from menu (I have some of those keystrokes taken by my FVWM configuration). But one does not have to know any keystrokes in Emacs, it is just a matter of moving one's wrists properly: https://www.xkcd.com/378/ > addition to the ones I learned decades ago and are now muscle memory. > And when I transformed it to other formats (probably html, but possibly > pdf) I ended up with many huge headers that took so much space that the > document was quite unreadable. Perhaps I just don't know how to use it > properly. I have not tried this so I am not sure what happens. If I have time, I will try to see what kind of problem this may be. > I found markdown to be a lot better for nested point-form work, even > though emacs won't collapse or expanding subtrees. (or will it? If so > I don't know of it) There are some answers here, and maybe some of it will work: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/7115/collapse-sections-in-markdown I guess I can read raw markdown in email just fine, it seems to look almost like raw org file. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [racket-users] Re: FYI Racket & DrRacket tagged projects on GitHub
On Sat, Jan 12, 2019 at 11:10:27AM +0100, 'Paulo Matos' via Racket Users wrote: > > > On 11/01/2019 17:23, Greg Trzeciak wrote: > > What would be really neat if https://pkgs.racket-lang.org/ would include > > date-added to all the packages. This way one could create automatic list > > of newly added packages and let's say distribute it in the newsletter > > Which newsletter are you referring to here? > > I had been thinking of getting a Racket Newsletter out of the ground but > haven't come around to it yet. Have you discussed previously something > in this direction? If so, I would like to help. MHO: If there is something to post in a form of "newsletter", then I think it could as well be posted here - why not - with perrmission from the group/moderators. Say, once per month? Bi-weekly? If the said newsletter is in txt format rather than html, you may want to put it into org-mode in Emacs and post it as saved file from that. See y-tube for a glimpse of what org-mode is up to. I would say, it is very neat tool for hierarchical contents (books, speeches etc). Some are using it to prepare presentations, and I guess it could be used for blogging (i.e. writing posts and converting them to actual markup later). I use it "as is" for a very primitive personal wiki (might improve some if I sit on it and add some code - primitive it is but it works without web server and on vt100 so I will not trade it for anything "better" - YMMV). -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [racket-users] hackernews
Thanks for your extensive reply. I realized that I have based my opinions on Racket 6.7 and we are living in 7.1-era, which makes some (but not all) of my words a bit irrelevant (I was subscribed here for all this time, but it just... skipped my attention somehow). I will address few points below. On Sun, Dec 30, 2018 at 12:24:59AM -0500, Philip McGrath wrote: > On Sat, Dec 29, 2018 at 1:48 PM Tomasz Rola wrote: > [...] > closest relatives: there is ongoing work to implement Racket in Chez > Scheme, and you will find some of the creators of Racket listed on the > cover page of R6RS. Ok, I guess this will suffice for me as sign of connection to the rest of Lisp-land. [...] > stuff) that it expects to be installed via the OS package manager, > but "Minimal Racket does not require additional native libraries to > run" <https://github.com/racket/racket/blob/master/INSTALL.txt>, and > you can configure things so that these are bundled with Racket > instead. Also, if you prefer, Racket can compile your scripts into > stand-alone executables, so you could just deploy the binaries if > that simplifies things. I think I will play with this "minimal Racket" idea. As of standalone execs, I will rather stay with scripts. [...] > The Racket Guide <https://docs.racket-lang.org/guide/dialects.html> points > you to how to run pure R5RS and R6RS code in Racket: did you not see this, > or was it not sufficiently clear? The part of message stating about R5RS and R6RS was quite clear to me and for long time. What was not clear was if I should expect vanishing support for those dialects. But from what you have written, it seems like I do not have to worry too much about it. So now I have lots of potential worries shot at once, which is good. > (Of course, writing practical programs in pure portable RnRS Scheme > is hard, Acknowledged. I was there and it was 4 on 0-10 point PITA scale. > > Another niche for which I would like to consider R* is mobile apps > > (i.e. for smartphone). But, is it possible to do such thing, actually? > > > > Jay McCarthy has ported Racket to Android: > https://github.com/jeapostrophe/racket-android It should be possible to do > likewise for iOS, but I don't know of anyone who's done it yet. Wonderful. Really. [...] > > Python has an excellent "batteries included" motto. … > > Something which can talk to and make use of existing Python, > > Perl, Ruby code? Open up a spreadsheet, read data, feed it to Python > > library, write back results. … utilities/system > > programming and/or stuff like reading and manipulating data in files, > > databases and spreadsheets … And showing some controls for mouse. > > > > Not only can Racket do all of these things, I personally do essentially all > of them. "Batteries included" is written right at the top of Racket's > website <https://racket-lang.org/>. The main distribution comes with a Since I have visited that site in 6.7 days I can see it underwent a nice change. Despite the fact that others in this thread would like to improve it even more. > package for working with many databases > <https://docs.racket-lang.org/db/index.html>, and other packages add > support for others <https://docs.racket-lang.org/mongodb/>, as well > CSV spreadsheets > <https://docs.racket-lang.org/csv-reading/index.html>. I have been > using Racket to run Python programs under its control and talk to > them via standard IO in formats like JSON. I even use Racket's `raco > setup` tool to manage the Python dependencies, and I'm working on > integrating the Python docstrings into Racket's Scribble > documentation. > In Racket itself, I maintain a cross-platform (Windows, Mac, and > GNU/Linux) GUI app, a server-side web application (including proxies > and virtual hosts managed from within Racket), and various utilities > for managing a large corpus of XML documents. Very interesting. The thought of puppeting one interpreter from another one is kind of hypnotizing me. And this (whole paragraph) is the kind of stuff that would have kept me interested in Racket during last two years, should I know about it (of course I am not blaming you, or anybody else, but this is how things mishappen, mostly my own lack of initiative plus circumstances). > The Racket language has compelling features (e.g. continuations, > contracts, green threads, DSLs) that make it more effective and > productive for my purposes than any other language I've encountered. Yep, I realize that. Since we are coming out, I have for years written small and low-medium utils in various scripting languages. But writing one or two of them in Elisp (it - or Emacs - can be utilised in such role) was quite an eye opening experience. There were some lim
Re: [racket-users] hackernews
and I could not find way to open them (hint from the web did not work, time ran out). So I will tinker with Scheme and see how I fare. Yes it is time consuming, and yes, I would rather learn R7RS than try again and fail again to use Perl. And yes, I might become trapped with Gauche, and unable to switch to alternative, but I may be able to compile it from src for long enough to devise way out of it. If nothing else, I had a look into src and chances are I might maintain a working version for a short while, just for myself, and by myself. I do not see such chance with Racket. Another nice choice for my goals might have been Chicken, but again, not sure if I have a chance to maintain, probably not. (Yes, I am abitextremalistic when it comes to choosing prog lang for myself and I consider scenarios involving all real maintainers driven over by selfdriving lorries and github+gitlab busted by idiot CEOs - if I am good in such case, I should be good with world ruled by Windows11 too). Another niche for which I would like to consider R* is mobile apps (i.e. for smartphone). But, is it possible to do such thing, actually? >From what I have read, Free Pascal Compiler has tools for this and more, so chances are that for my first Android app (the one which is for learning it) I would turn my attention there. If nothing else, having to use different language for each platform is unacceptable (or else I would have to write same app twice or more, in Java and in Swing and in something, too). So, to sum up, Racket is interesting, well written, has an excellent docs and stuff but is not convincing. At least for me. I cannot say if there is one clear use case. I mean, in real life. In theory, one can write anything in it. In practice, however, what has been written actually? [...] > story, a couple might be inspired to think about DSLs for their own > startup idea, and then somehow this becomes RACKET EXPONENTIAL > EXPLOSION. Or at least more people making a living working with/on > Racket. For this, Racket has to be more interoperable. Can it replace Java? Can it work with Java libraries? I guess no. Not now, at least. Not a big problem, but might be nice to have. It can replace Perl, possibly. And is probably faster than Perl. It should try to cater to people using Python and Ruby. Python has an excellent "batteries included" motto. There is plenty of nice programs one can write with just standard set of Python. And their packages reside in nice hierarchy (os, sys, tk - one can have a pointer as to where to look for function returning directory contents). Placing itself as a new, better glue language? Is that a position for Racket? Something which can talk to and make use of existing Python, Perl, Ruby code? Open up a spreadsheet, read data, feed it to Python library, write back results. This kind of stuff would be a seller, IMHO. Thanks to ongoing changes to various languages I used to rub myself with, I am unwilling to write new code in them but I would really appreciate having a way to use this Python3 code in a future, when Python5 will make "3" obsolete and incompatible. > BTW, maybe jobs using Racket will also encourage a lot more quality > contributions of packages, when there's the additional motivation of > open source "auditioning" for jobs, in addition to the current > community participation, platform promotion, and love of craft. Forget it. I think this is standing a problem on its head. I think jobs will come if R* provides a way to solve the kind of problems that go with jobs. From my point of view, it is either utilities/system programming and/or stuff like reading and manipulating data in files, databases and spreadsheets (this one being most important, because people are using them for everything, poorly and it will probably start showing up and become obvious to everybody as source of nasty problems). And showing some controls for mouse. Or, if that is present already, then spreading the news via blogs and planets. Well, enough for today. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [racket-users] colon keywords
On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 04:56:05AM -0400, Neil Van Dyke wrote: > Currently, in main Racket reader, `#:` starts a keyword, as in `#:foo`. > > Who on this email list would also like (or not like) `:` to start a > keyword, as in `:foo`? Neil, Thanks a lot for asking. I would like to have colon keywords, straight, i.e. ":keyword" rather than "#:keyword". > And, if you want the reader to also support `:foo`, would you want > the writer to default to writing `:foo` rather than `#:foo` (and how > much would you want that)? And in the documentation? I would like to go for :keyword everywhere, if possible. > (I've wanted "colon keywords" since keywords were first added to > Racket, but have been dutifully enduring the "hash-colon", rather > than make anyone who uses my open source packages depend on an > additional package for my own variant of `#lang racket/base`. But, > after many years of this, I still dislike typing and looking at > `#:`. I know some people don't understand why anyone cares (or > suspect bikeshedding), but I get the impression that this is getting > into cog-sci differences between individual programmers. Like you, I "suffer" but if it could be reduced a bit, then the world could maybe become a better place, or something. > Maybe one way to look at it is a vague "programmer preference", like > light vs. dark screen background, rather than try to argue that no > one should I believe those indifferent to light will begin noticing it if they keep programming (or just staring at the screen) whole days while entering their fourties. > want to do it that way. Then the question might be: how popular is > this "colon keyword" programmer preference? Which is why I'm asking > the email list.) I happen to read/write code in various LISP flavours (but I am not as sophistocated as such statement would imply). :keywords are what other LISPs seem to be doing (Common Lisp, Elisp, Gauche the Scheme dialect - this is what I have spotted so far). I think reusing some s-expressions between all those could definitely become easier with :keywords. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: [racket-users] Of editors and mere mortals
On Sun, Nov 06, 2016 at 09:23:01PM -0500, David Storrs wrote: > I've been using Emacs as my sole text editor since about 1990. Things I > use on a daily basis include: > > - Dired mode > - Org mode > - iswitchb (which I think has been obsoleted by something else, but still > works fine) > - desktop-save-mode I use emacs since about 1995, my dot-emacs file started life in 1999, as a bunch of dirty, misunderstood hacks copied from the net (well, I already understood some of Scheme at the time which helped a bit). Modes of particular interests for me: - org mode - wonderful stuff, see it in action on y-tube - w3m - for browsing certain pages, this one is getting old, I contemplated the source code for a while, maybe will look at it again - mail mode - I use it right now for writing, does good job together with color-theme (but I am not reading emails with emacs - I need to tame one of the modes first and am very afraid of stuff like deleting read emails when I wanted to keep them etc - so for now emacs is simply being called from mutt as just an editor) - color theme - makes my code look somewhat better, a fruit hanging lower that becoming a better software engineer - ielm - repl for emacs, helps a lot when I extend my dot-emacs or have some quick and dirty piece of oneliner in (e)lisp and desperately need to dump it somewhere - slime - which is to bread what butter and jam are to Common Lisp programming and last but not least - geiser - for editing Scheme and Racket I have also looked at quack for the same purpose. Getting used to both modes required some additional reading and problem solving, but I do not recall what was it. I admit, I could use Racket more often. I cannot recomend anything else - I have been too content and too busy to look for alternatives. And when something does not work, I would rather spend a day reading docs and trying to write proper elisp snippet [1] than spend a week evaluating "more engineered" environments. [1] However, despite all the reading I sometimes feel like some kind of undereducated magician's apprentice, who casts spell without reading elisp sources first, and thus might be surprised by what jumps out of monitor. A realist/pessimist will recognise it is only a matter of time until I am truly surprised. So far, so good, hehehe. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
