Re: OT: Re: [Chicken-users] rails-like framework

[Pupeno]

On Monday, 24 de April de 2006 22:12, Shawn Rutledge wrote:
> A side project is how to get rid of the parentheses so that ordinary
> people can tolerate writing Scheme.
Getting rid of parenthesis is dangerous, people may forget that while writting 
Scheme programs you are doing it as Scheme data and that programs are no more 
than a tree (build up with cons... lists if you like).
I believe the best thing is to teach the language, not to bend it to fits 
someone's mind. That kind be done by making conferences in Linux and 
Linux-like events.
I've done that and even with parethesis I've got some people really interested 
wanting to try it.
If you are interested, my sildes are on-line: 
http://pupeno.com/conferencias/lisp-un-lenguage-diferente/
They are in spanish, so, let me translate the firsts for you:

(silde 1
Lisp, a different language.)

There I explain that Lisp is really different. Let's see why it is different:

(slide 2
- The name of a procedure goes inside the parenthesis, (print "a") instead of 
print("a").
- Instead of writting 4 + 4 you write + 4 4.
- It is the second oldest language.
- It is used in artificial intelligence)

And as I explain the last point I let a label "BULLSHIT" stamp over those 
reasons. That really wakes up the public. And it also puts things where they 
belong. I go on explaining that those difference really exist and that 
newcomers are likely to see them first but they should not regard it as 
important because they are not. They are superficial things and the real 
thing is below.
I think that explanation and all the circus around it makes people not wanting 
to worry about it (nobody likes worrying about superficial things, so, stand 
up and shout that it is just a superficial thing... you may at least, have a 
few people that will try to look deeper).

The first time I gave this talk I had a slot of one hour... when the hour 
passed by I continue as nobody needed the room; I noticed some people 
leaving, maybe for other talks that were starting, so I announced that time 
was up, everybody was free to leave but I would continue until I was finished 
or kicked out of the room. I continue with one and a half more hours, the 
public ended up being those really interested, it was very relaxed and I had 
times to do some very nice tricks on the blackboard (like implementing pairs 
using just procedures, implementing IF using cond and syntax extensions, 
etc). People were really pleased, with discussed the language against other 
languages (there were people in the audience with a wide spectrum of 
languages; one even was complaining that some other language could do all 
that until I've found out that it was another Lisp, hehehe).
I am not currently using Lisp actively, but I would love to give this 
conference again, either in Spanish or English, if I am allowed the right 
amount of times (2hs). I even could turn it into a written article, but so 
far no magazines were interested on it.
Thank you.
-- 
Pupeno <address@hidden> (http://pupeno.com)

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