On Tue, 08 Feb 2022 19:19:06 +0700 Blake Shaw <bl...@nonconstructivism.com> wrote:
> Vijay Marupudi <vijaymarup...@gatech.edu> writes: > > I don't think it's fair to say that using packages in Guile just as > > easy/hard as other languages. Python / Javascript make this incredibly > > easy, and their ecosystem is evidence for that success. Their package > > managers have flaws, but they have benefits too, and those benefits > > would be great for Guile. > > I would just like to tag onto this convo that I agree that its not fair > to say that Guile is easy and will quickly bless those who endeavor to > learn it with superpowers. My experience w/Racket was very smooth and I > got working in it very quickly. I was a contracted to work on a project in > Python a few months ago and without ever studying it I was able to > start doing production work in it (ridiculous how intuitive it is, > really). Before I started learning Guile I read Edwin Brady's book on > Idris and found Idris much easier to get from start to end of small > projects I was working on (because there is a well written book on it). > > While Guile has become my favorite programming language, it took me > several months to learn how to navigate & figure out how to navigate the > SRFIs, how to plan a program so that I can know what to expect along the > way (what features I'll need to implement myself, etc) before I was able > to get productive in it beyond the realm of Guix. And I think most would > agree that Scheme is a less advanced language than Idris (I did some > category theory in school so I have some intuition for the ideas, but > still). And to be honest, I still hit plenty of road blocks. > > There were definitely some times where I was digging around trying to > figure out how to do things and came across messages in the archives > saying "its so easy you just do [vague hand wavy explanation]". And I > found that quite frustrating, like there is an insularity meant to weed > out the bad apples. And when this topic popped up on the guix list a few > weeks ago some others expressed similar concerns, folks who are doing > very impressive work. A programming language should never make > programmers feel dumb -- it should make us feel empowered! Everything is capable of improvement but the guile manual is a manual and not I think primarily intended as a language tutorial (although Chapter 3 of the manual does have a very cursory introduction to the scheme language). If you are looking for a tutorial, I suggest reading https://www.scheme.com/tspl4/ . It covers the R6RS flavour, but at the tutorial level I don't think the various current standard flavours (R5RS, R6RS and R7RS) matter too much. I would be reluctant to see the manual turned into a tutorial if that were to mean abridging any of its current completeness.
