Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Alexis King]

I think Greg Hendershott’s Fear of Macros 
 tutorial is pretty top-notch. 
Would it make any sense to adapt and incorporate that into the Racket docs?

> On Apr 9, 2015, at 12:28, Geoffrey Knauth  wrote:
> 
> Since from his first months learning Racket, my son Alex immediately started 
> diving into the language-altering aspects of Racket, when you do develop a 
> tutorial/pedagogy for that, you might see what reaction he has.
> 
> On Thursday, March 26, 2015 at 8:18:53 AM UTC-4, Matthias Felleisen wrote:
>> On Mar 26, 2015, at 7:42 AM, Konrad Hinsen wrote:
>> 
>>> In my opinion, it would be interesting to develop a pedagogical
>>> approach to the language development theme in the form of tutorials,
>>> books, or presentations. Maybe even a "teaching language" with a
>>> simplified version of syntax/parse. The goal would be both to lower
>>> the entry barrier to the most interesting aspects of the Racket
>>> universe, and to gain insight by teaching, i.e. find better ways
>>> to do things in the future.
>> 
>> As you probably realize, this is the suggestion -- in more words --
>> that is mentioned in the conclusion, and academics who know us will
>> interpret this code in exactly this way. 
>> 
>> The idea has been on my mind for years. Three years ago I opened a 
>> notes file to get this going by 2015. Sadly, there are no entries
>> since 2013 and overall there are only two entries overall. 
>> 
>> But yes, section 3 is the hard part and work on 4 and 5 is 
>> "substitution" as Daniel Kahneman would say. 
>> 
>> -- Matthias
> 
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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Geoffrey Knauth]

Since from his first months learning Racket, my son Alex immediately started 
diving into the language-altering aspects of Racket, when you do develop a 
tutorial/pedagogy for that, you might see what reaction he has.

On Thursday, March 26, 2015 at 8:18:53 AM UTC-4, Matthias Felleisen wrote:
> On Mar 26, 2015, at 7:42 AM, Konrad Hinsen wrote:
> 
> > In my opinion, it would be interesting to develop a pedagogical
> > approach to the language development theme in the form of tutorials,
> > books, or presentations. Maybe even a "teaching language" with a
> > simplified version of syntax/parse. The goal would be both to lower
> > the entry barrier to the most interesting aspects of the Racket
> > universe, and to gain insight by teaching, i.e. find better ways
> > to do things in the future.
> 
> As you probably realize, this is the suggestion -- in more words --
> that is mentioned in the conclusion, and academics who know us will
> interpret this code in exactly this way. 
> 
> The idea has been on my mind for years. Three years ago I opened a 
> notes file to get this going by 2015. Sadly, there are no entries
> since 2013 and overall there are only two entries overall. 
> 
> But yes, section 3 is the hard part and work on 4 and 5 is 
> "substitution" as Daniel Kahneman would say. 
> 
> -- Matthias

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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Matthias Felleisen]

On Mar 27, 2015, at 4:11 AM, Konrad Hinsen wrote:

> Matthias Felleisen writes:
> 
 A web site is an ad.
>>> 
>>> As is a research paper. It's the audience that differs.
>> 
>> I am sorry but you embrace modern CS departments too much, 
>> and there is push-back coming about. Don't bother me with 
>> papers that I can't reconstruct and accept after that as 
>> valid or invalid. 
> 
> I am activist in the Reproducible Research movement as well, so I
> fully agree.  But this is my dream for the future, not the present I
> live in. In my field of work (biomolecular simulation), it is even
> technically impossible to publish most research in a form that allows
> readers to reconstruct everything from published code. In fact,
> my current Racket project is about improving this situation.


Fine, but please don't generalize. Induction from 0 and 1 to infinite has not 
worked in a while. 


>> See Grow Your Language. Let us know what you think. 
> 
> Oops - I hadn't seen that one. My default landing page for Racket is
> docs.racket-lang.org.
> 
> Yes, this looks good. The link to section 17 of the Racket Guide is
> great for getting people started!


Yes, thanks -- Matthias


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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Konrad Hinsen]

Matthias Felleisen writes:

 > >> A web site is an ad.
 > > 
 > > As is a research paper. It's the audience that differs.
 > 
 > I am sorry but you embrace modern CS departments too much, 
 > and there is push-back coming about. Don't bother me with 
 > papers that I can't reconstruct and accept after that as 
 > valid or invalid. 

I am activist in the Reproducible Research movement as well, so I
fully agree.  But this is my dream for the future, not the present I
live in. In my field of work (biomolecular simulation), it is even
technically impossible to publish most research in a form that allows
readers to reconstruct everything from published code. In fact,
my current Racket project is about improving this situation.

 > See Grow Your Language. Let us know what you think. 

Oops - I hadn't seen that one. My default landing page for Racket is
docs.racket-lang.org.

Yes, this looks good. The link to section 17 of the Racket Guide is
great for getting people started!

Konrad.

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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Matthias Felleisen]

[I am sorry for replying again on this sub-thread, 
but your first statement makes me very sad and the 
second one points out a serious flaw in our web prose.]


On Mar 26, 2015, at 11:02 AM, Konrad Hinsen  wrote:

>> A web site is an ad.
> 
> As is a research paper. It's the audience that differs.


I am sorry but you embrace modern CS departments too much, 
and there is push-back coming about. Don't bother me with 
papers that I can't reconstruct and accept after that as 
valid or invalid. 

An ad is totally different. 




>> It is for the programmer looking for a productive tool. As such,
>> the site needs to clarify that
>> 
>> -- Racket is an ordinary programming language 
>>  (see sentence 1 in section 3)
>> -- it brings something to the table that is an increment over others 
>> (full-spectrum)
>>  (see section 4 plus section 5)
>> -- you can do truly unusual things with it (grow your language) 
>>  (see section 3) 
> 
> I'd say it does (1) very well, (2) reasonably well, and (3) not at
> all.  If you know about (3) you can find the details, but even that
> requires some effort.


See Grow Your Language. Let us know what you think. 

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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Konrad Hinsen]

Matthias Felleisen writes:

 > Here we go:
 > 
 > 0. open drracket 
 > 1. type "("
 > 2. hit 
 > 3. stare at the two spaces of indentation in sheer amazement 
 > 4. relax, type ")"
 > 
 > Smile. Now you're a Racketeer. 

Thanks - now I feel enlightened!

 > A web site is an ad.

As is a research paper. It's the audience that differs.

 > It is for the programmer looking for a productive tool. As such,
 > the site needs to clarify that
 > 
 > -- Racket is an ordinary programming language 
 >  (see sentence 1 in section 3)
 > -- it brings something to the table that is an increment over others 
 > (full-spectrum)
 >  (see section 4 plus section 5)
 > -- you can do truly unusual things with it (grow your language) 
 >  (see section 3) 

I'd say it does (1) very well, (2) reasonably well, and (3) not at
all.  If you know about (3) you can find the details, but even that
requires some effort.

Konrad.

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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Matthias Felleisen]

On Mar 26, 2015, at 7:42 AM, Konrad Hinsen  wrote:

> I must be missing something interesting. Is there some tutorial on the Rites 
> of Racket?  ;-)

I meant to address this one but a separate message is better anyway. 

Here we go:

0. open drracket 
1. type "("
2. hit 
3. stare at the two spaces of indentation in sheer amazement 
4. relax, type ")"

Smile. Now you're a Racketeer. 

[See sub-module in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9261073 ]



;; 
--

> What strikes me is that the manifesto gives a very different view of
> Racket than the Racket Web site does. 

A web site is an ad. It is for the programmer looking for a productive 
tool. As such, the site needs to clarify that 

-- Racket is an ordinary programming language 
(see sentence 1 in section 3)
-- it brings something to the table that is an increment over others 
(full-spectrum)
(see section 4 plus section 5)
-- you can do truly unusual things with it (grow your language) 
(see section 3) 

The "pedagogy" of an ad calls for very different orderings that the painting of 
a 
big picture for people who explore the intellectual landscape of programming 
languages
(as a whole and in principle) (especially w/o every programming much beyond 
latex). 

So please keep context in mind when you read our prose. 

-- Matthias


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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Matthias Felleisen]

On Mar 26, 2015, at 7:42 AM, Konrad Hinsen wrote:

> In my opinion, it would be interesting to develop a pedagogical
> approach to the language development theme in the form of tutorials,
> books, or presentations. Maybe even a "teaching language" with a
> simplified version of syntax/parse. The goal would be both to lower
> the entry barrier to the most interesting aspects of the Racket
> universe, and to gain insight by teaching, i.e. find better ways
> to do things in the future.

As you probably realize, this is the suggestion -- in more words --
that is mentioned in the conclusion, and academics who know us will
interpret this code in exactly this way. 

The idea has been on my mind for years. Three years ago I opened a 
notes file to get this going by 2015. Sadly, there are no entries
since 2013 and overall there are only two entries overall. 

But yes, section 3 is the hard part and work on 4 and 5 is 
"substitution" as Daniel Kahneman would say. 

-- Matthias

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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Konrad Hinsen]

Matthias Felleisen writes:

 > Neil, I wrote this paper _because_ academia perceives Racket as a cult. 

Wow. I must be missing something interesting. Is there some tutorial
on the Rites of Racket?  ;-)

I am in academia, but quite remote from the Racket hotspots both
thematically and geographically. As far as I can remember, I have
never spoken to anyone in real life who uses Racket or who just knows
a Racket user in person. From this distant point of view, Racket looks
like a community of people working on a common goal, and the manifesto
describes that goal very well.

What strikes me is that the manifesto gives a very different view of
Racket than the Racket Web site does. The latter emphasizes Racket as
a teaching environment and as a "batteries included" general-purpose
language. The features related to language development are documented
in the reference sections, but there isn't much to motivate them. It's
only from the manifesto that I started to see the point of having
inspectors and custodians, for example.

In my opinion, it would be interesting to develop a pedagogical
approach to the language development theme in the form of tutorials,
books, or presentations. Maybe even a "teaching language" with a
simplified version of syntax/parse. The goal would be both to lower
the entry barrier to the most interesting aspects of the Racket
universe, and to gain insight by teaching, i.e. find better ways
to do things in the future.

Konrad.

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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Matthias Felleisen]

On Mar 24, 2015, at 11:15 PM, Matthias Felleisen  wrote:

> On Mar 24, 2015, at 10:34 PM, Neil Van Dyke wrote:
> 
>> Shortly after I declare that Racket is not a cult, Racket goes and issues a 
>> manifesto.
>> 
>> Neil V.



Neil, I wrote this paper _because_ academia perceives Racket as a cult. 
The reactions from academics has been nothing but great so far (tested 
locally) and I am hoping it will help my future students with entry into
academia, which I consider Racket's home base (not that there aren't
and shouldn't be others). 

The word in the title is a compromise. I would have preferred 'platform'
but my co-authors didn't find it 'groany' enough. I do not consider it
a mockery of anything. It simply says that this is the vision we have
had for Racket and that we will continue to work on. 

-- Matthias

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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Matthew Butterick]

Care for a banana, Neil?

But seriously, what a terrific document to put together. Thank you for
this. Racket's combination of long-term planning and near-term nimbleness
is without peer.

On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 7:36 PM, Robby Findler 
wrote:

> I consider this title a form of self-mockery, don't you know.
>
> Robby
>
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 9:34 PM, Neil Van Dyke 
> wrote:
> > Shortly after I declare that Racket is not a cult, Racket goes and
> issues a
> > manifesto.
> >
> > Neil V.
> >
> >
> > --
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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Robby Findler]

I consider this title a form of self-mockery, don't you know.

Robby

On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 9:34 PM, Neil Van Dyke  wrote:
> Shortly after I declare that Racket is not a cult, Racket goes and issues a
> manifesto.
>
> Neil V.
>
>
> --
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Re: [racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Neil Van Dyke]

Shortly after I declare that Racket is not a cult, Racket goes and 
issues a manifesto.


Neil V.

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[racket-users] the Racket manifesto

[Matthias Felleisen]

We have just submitted the Racket manifesto for publication. 
If you'd like to take a look at what has been on our mind, 
here is scribbled version: 

 http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/Tmp/manifesto/

The PDF is linked in. -- Matthias



Typos/scribbelos: to matth...@ccs.neu.edu
Comments: as you wish 

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