From owner-freebsd-ports Wed Nov 20 06:37:40 1996 Return-Path: owner-ports Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id GAA07747 for ports-outgoing; Wed, 20 Nov 1996 06:37:40 -0800 (PST) Received: from chai.plexuscom.com (chai.plexuscom.com [207.87.46.100]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id GAA07728 for ; Wed, 20 Nov 1996 06:37:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by chai.plexuscom.com (8.7.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA07649; Wed, 20 Nov 1996 09:37:44 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199611201437.JAA07649@chai.plexuscom.com> X-Authentication-Warning: chai.plexuscom.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Martin Cracauer Cc: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org, rpw3@sgi.com Subject: Re: Interest in large collection of Lisp/Scheme implementations? In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 20 Nov 1996 09:02:23 +0100." <199611200802.JAA02154@knight.cons.org> Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 09:37:44 -0500 From: Bakul Shah Sender: owner-ports@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Of course not. The most visible changes would be things like a > modified search path to include a common directory and a modified > directory structure to meet FreeBSD's demands. Ahh, that is good to know! > The points you list are not easy to solve, most of them require that > you choose just the one right implementation. I think the right way to > attack the problem is to make a collection of implementation > availiable in a form that everyone can try many implementations > without spending too much time in installing them. For now, people > usually stay with one of the first implementations they happen to > install. I agree with you about making a large collections available. I did not make my point clearly. I'd like more people to use Scheme the way they use Perl, TCL, Python and (in some cases) C. Given that goal, a suboptimal use of FreeBSD VM is less of a problem than a lack of useful little `hacks', scripts, examples. Once (and if) people start using such scheme based tools, then they will worry about speeding them up and in the process discover that Scheme isn't `just for breakfast anymore'. My experience is that people try out a number of different implementations and then stick to one or two imp. but eventually most of these people stay at the dabbling-in-Scheme level due to the afore-mentioned lack (or they get really interested in Scheme and write their own implementation or mutate an existing one!). At any rate an easy to install collection of Scheme and Lisp implementations will certainly allow many more people spend time writing such useful tools! Who knows, it might even cure their C-sickness :-) -- bakul