Re: [racket-users] Using the draw and plot packages with other languages
On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 6:40 AM, Marduk Bolaños mardu...@gmail.com wrote: Coming back to my original question. What is your advice for using Racket's draw and plot in other programs? Hi, Marduk. There was a discussion that is close to your purpose. http://lists.racket-lang.org/users/archive//2014-January/061247.html But I think the easiest way is communicating through TCP socket. You can launch a Racket tcp server application waiting for data sent by your working languages and only do visualizing with it. -- 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] Using the draw and plot packages with other languages
Great! Thank you! Best, Marduk -- 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] Using the draw and plot packages with other languages
Hi -- nobody here is accusing you of anything. It's just that we are not used to the words profit and maximize profit on this mailing list. In general I agree with you that it would be wonderful if we could easily integrate tools across programming languages. Sadly, I think that this is neither technically easy nor socially desirable: -- Each language comes with invariants and assumptions that govern the relationship between compiler and run-time system. Gluing compiled code isn't as simple as linking pieces of code. -- As you say, scientists aren't paid to write code. As you may realize, programming language designers are not paid to support scientists. There are many kinds of users, and they all deserve support. One more thing you should appreciate about our situation. A long time ago scientists used computer scientists as their scribes. They governed the funding agencies (and still do to a lesser extent), they didn't respect computer science as an independent discipline (fancy paper and pencil) and told us what to do. Fortran I. Fortran II. Fortran III. Fortran IV. ... ... Fortran XIIIX (which uses this strange Java syntax). They got what they asked for without listening to anyone who disagreed. Now the chicken has flown the coop (or something like that), and it's too late for now Having said that, my hunch is that if you conducted the necessary research, people would eventually appreciate what you are doing but it would still take a while Good luck and I am looking forward to your next technical post -- Matthias On Aug 15, 2015, at 4:37 PM, Marduk Bolaños wrote: When you say maximize the profit, whose profit are you referring to? What I mean is that software that could be useful in several contexts, like a plotting library, should enable the possibility of pluging it in to a larger software project. That way, several projects would benefit/profit from the effort and expertise of the authors of the software library. When you say minimize duplication of effort, whose labor costs are you referring to? People/projects needing the functionality provided by the library would not have to implement it, thus avoiding a duplication of effort. And if this work is so valuable to the profit-taker / cost-avoider, why aren't they already investing in a solution? I do not understand why are you being so defensive/aggressive. My understanding is that most people in the Racket community are academics and so are many scientists. As is well known, most scientists are not paid for writing software, we do not have time to do it and most of us lack the training. Therefore, what we try to do is to use the tools that are available. I came to this forum asking for advice on integrating Racket libraries with free software projects, not on using them for commercial purposes. I hope that I can receive a better response than Why don't you write your own plotting library?. Best, Marduk -- 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. -- 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] Using the draw and plot packages with other languages
Dear Neil, Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply and your understanding. There are lots of ways to interoperate between languages, but once you get into high-level languages the C calling-convention native code way you might be thinking of doesn't necessarily work well. I am really interested in this topic. Many scientists write libraries in Matlab and Mathematica and I find this very unfortunate. Not only do they require you to buy a license for this software but it is also difficult to use them in your favourite language/environment. Therefore, I am thinking of writing my libraries in a compiled language in order to make them more reusable. sometimes making it work very smoothly and efficiently for all cases, like you might imagine, is infeasible or simply a low priority. I understand that. I thought it would be easy. I do not want to distract the Racket developers from more important work. Maybe higher-level languages that aren't so easily mapped to a particular model of native code put us in a better position to smooth that transition. I have read something about LLVM and its intermediate representation. Do you think that using an LLVM-compiled language is more future-proof? I know there has been interest in doing more numerical things in Racket. It would be great to be able to do GPU programming. Cheers, Marduk -- 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] Using the draw and plot packages with other languages
Marduk Bolaños wrote on 08/14/2015 10:06 PM: Since Racket is a compiled language, I thought that perhaps it would be possible to compile these packages as shared libraries and then (ideally automatically) generate bindings for the desired language. I think I understand your message, and am sympathetic. It's tricky. There are lots of ways to interoperate between languages, but once you get into high-level languages (Racket, Java, Python, JavaScript, etc.), the C calling-convention native code way you might be thinking of doesn't necessarily work well. We can make it work, as needed, but sometimes making it work very smoothly and efficiently for all cases, like you might imagine, is infeasible or simply a low priority. (I started to get into details here on all the ways you can interoperate, but it's too big a topic for a general email.) Also, FWIW, consider that, even if today you had *everything* using the native code interoperation, we might be in trouble when we find we have to write code that sits on the GPU (i.e., a different native architecture) at the same time as the code we're reusing, or use some safe big data compute server model, or whatever comes next. Maybe higher-level languages that aren't so easily mapped to a particular model of native code put us in a better position to smooth that transition. It really bothers me that the current status of scientific software engineering is such that there are several implementations of plotting libraries, computer algebra systems, numerical routines libraries, etc. all doing mostly the same things but differing in the language in which they are written. Note that I have nothing against diversity, but it seems to me that there is too much reinventing the wheel. Agreed, there is a lot of reinventing the wheel in computing in general, and rough interoperation in computing in general. This is not unique to computing. There's no single reason for it, but any of a large number of reasons, varying per instance. Sometimes overwhelmingly good reasons, usually trade-offs, sometimes no good reason I can see. Don't get me started on some of the travesties that have happened relatively recently in CS -- in which accidents, impropriety, and just plain ignorance led to big steps backwards in the tools that we CS people use for thinking and building. It's not only *non*-CS scientists who feel the pain of IT wheel-reinventing. :) You mentioned Racket plot. I know there has been interest in doing more numerical things in Racket. I don't know what the latest Racket plans are, but I assume that there are good reasons for whatever is being, er, plotted. Neil V. -- 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] Using the draw and plot packages with other languages
I don't do scientific computing, but it seems your question is to some degree about economic incentives. When you say maximize the profit, whose profit are you referring to? When you say minimize duplication of effort, whose labor costs are you referring to? And if this work is so valuable to the profit-taker / cost-avoider, why aren't they already investing in a solution? On Aug 14, 2015, at 7:06 PM, Marduk Bolaños mardu...@gmail.com wrote: Dear all, As everybody knows, Racket's plot library is feature-rich and produces beautiful output. The draw library is also great for generating diagrams. I prefer functional-style drawing over LaTeX packages. What I would like to do is to be able to use these libraries in Maxima, Julia and other scientific computing environments. If I understand correctly, the plot package relies on the draw package, which in turn uses cairo. Since Racket is a compiled language, I thought that perhaps it would be possible to compile these packages as shared libraries and then (ideally automatically) generate bindings for the desired language. Given that a lot of time and expertise is involved in the development of the tools used in the scientific computing workflow, I believe that in order to maximize the profit and minimize the duplication of effort, such tools should be able to interoperate smoothly. In my view, the core algorithms should be written once in a compiled language and then all that should be needed to use them in your prefered language is to generate the bindings. It really bothers me that the current status of scientific software engineering is such that there are several implementations of plotting libraries, computer algebra systems, numerical routines libraries, etc. all doing mostly the same things but differing in the language in which they are written. Note that I have nothing against diversity, but it seems to me that there is too much reinventing the wheel. I look forward to your comments. Best, Marduk -- 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. -- 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.
[racket-users] Using the draw and plot packages with other languages
Dear all, As everybody knows, Racket's plot library is feature-rich and produces beautiful output. The draw library is also great for generating diagrams. I prefer functional-style drawing over LaTeX packages. What I would like to do is to be able to use these libraries in Maxima, Julia and other scientific computing environments. If I understand correctly, the plot package relies on the draw package, which in turn uses cairo. Since Racket is a compiled language, I thought that perhaps it would be possible to compile these packages as shared libraries and then (ideally automatically) generate bindings for the desired language. Given that a lot of time and expertise is involved in the development of the tools used in the scientific computing workflow, I believe that in order to maximize the profit and minimize the duplication of effort, such tools should be able to interoperate smoothly. In my view, the core algorithms should be written once in a compiled language and then all that should be needed to use them in your prefered language is to generate the bindings. It really bothers me that the current status of scientific software engineering is such that there are several implementations of plotting libraries, computer algebra systems, numerical routines libraries, etc. all doing mostly the same things but differing in the language in which they are written. Note that I have nothing against diversity, but it seems to me that there is too much reinventing the wheel. I look forward to your comments. Best, Marduk -- 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.
