On Aug 31, 2011, at 10:03 AM, Josh Tilles wrote: > Dear Racketeers, > I'm (comparatively) young, and so also not familiar with the social protocols > of IRC & newsgroups in the world of software development. My basic question > is whether there is a place that explains the etiquette of interacting with > the Racket & PLT communities. Or perhaps just a few sentences detailing how > to use the ListServ effectively? Because you all do seem to be wonderfully > active and helpful, but I'm just not sure how to jump in.
Sounds like you just did! > > But before you direct me to How to Design Programs: I don't think I'm that > much of a n00blet. A representative sample of the sorts of questions I've > wanted to ask more experienced people include: > -- In learning about continuations & how they can be used in web servers, I'm > really reminded of Haskell's use of monads to accumulate state. How similar > are monads and continuations? Am I falling into some conceptual trap by > linking them? You can use a monad to model continuations (the continuation monad), just as you can use a monad to model state (the state monad). I don't think that I would naturally use monads to understand continuations any more than I would use monads to understand state... but that's up to you, I suppose. > -- Is there any sort of general practice or prevailing taste in when to use > (for example) null vs empty vs (list)? :) > What about (let ([...])) vs (local (define ...))? In the last few years, there's been significant motion towards allowing (define ...) in more places; at this point, I would say idiomatic Racket uses (define...) without the local. > -- When is it appropriate to use RackUnit, and when should Contracts be used > instead? :) > > P.S. Has anyone given any thought to consolidating some of the Racket > discussion to a StackExchange site? Or something else of that ilk? Without knowing more: what advantage would that have? John Clements
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