[Bluej-discuss] bluej-discuss Digest, Vol 52, Issue 12

[Lon Levy]

May I suggest that you were learning Scheme with the purpose of learning a language ... not the way my students learn.  The concepts are trivial if approached correctly.  Also, neither I nor my students spend time counting parenthesis; this is one of the appropriate uses of an IDE.  Just like BlueJ, the DrScheme IDE does parenthesis matching for the programmer or student.  If we still lived in the world of writing Scheme in vi or e-macs, I would run away in terror.

On the other hand, you are, of course, welcome to keep your mind firmly closed.  Enjoy yourself in there.  8-)

This discussion led from questions of what should be in an IDE and since it is the BlueJ group, may I shift to there for a moment.  BlueJ does parenthesis matching, as I mentioned above.  This is a good thing.  One thing that I would prefer (not required) is a bolder indication of the match.  The outline of the parenthesis on both ends works, but is sometimes difficult for my tired old eyes to see.

Again, thanks to everyone for various parts of this discussion and the BlueJ crew for great tools,

Lon.

Lon Levy, MS-CSEd
Computer Science Teacher
Volunteer Computer Club Advisor
Oregon High School
608-835-1316
LXL at oregon.k12.wi.us
cs at levytree.net

non somnos requiem

>>> "Aryeh M. Friedman" <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com> 10/14/07 10:28 AM >>>
Lon Levy wrote:
> "> Many of us use Scheme as a first language
>   
>>   
>>     
>
> What is worse too much semantic overhead or the syntax from hell??!?!?!?"
>
> Did you ever really learn Scheme?  The syntax is mostly prefix notation.  There are about five more elements of syntax that I teach my 

Pre/postfix belongs in compilers and very old hp calculators only!!! 
All humor aside anything but infix requires an amazing amount of
conceptual conversion between problem and code space.   That plus having
to count parens basically rules out any lisp variant in my mind.