Re: How to make GNU Guile more successful

[Panicz Maciej Godek]

2017-02-13 23:54 GMT+01:00 Arne Babenhauserheide <address@hidden>:

>
> Panicz Maciej Godek <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > 2017-02-13 12:06 GMT+01:00 Arne Babenhauserheide <address@hidden>:
> > There's also this problem with Scheme that it is a very diverse
> > community with plethora of implementations. And while I use Guile, I
> > don't mind using Chicken or Chez or Gambit for various purposes. Or
> > even Stalin sometimes. Maybe, instead of getting a better compiler, we
> > should focus on integrating existing compilers?
>
> You’ll have to ask Andy Wingo about all the hidden complexity in just
> wiring in a compilier. I assume it’s pretty big.
>
> I think the r7rs folks are working in that regard, to make it possible
> to write code which you can simply run through another Scheme
> implementation if you need those strengths.
>
> I started to use (import (...)) to get closer to that: Getting used to
> the portable stuff (also it’s shorter than (use-modules (...)). But not
> everything is portable, and performance critical stuff most definitely
> isn’t.
>
> And for the stuff I do, most things get performance critical at some
> point. Even looking for null-bytes in a file becomes a bottleneck if you
> have a few hundred TiB to check.
>
> Though I mainly need to write Python at work (Scheme isn’t widespread
> enough for the folks there — Python is everywhere in science
> nowadays). It’s still efficient to do that and I enjoy it, but not as
> much as writing Scheme.
>
> >> And it's easy to packages.
> >> >
> >> >   => Another pain topic. In reality it's very easy to package
> >> >      all sort of guile programs for guix. But guix itself needs
> >> >      to be more stable.
> >>
> >> I wish I had guildhall ready. Got hit by
> >> time-eaten-by-other-project-because-guildhall-was-priority-three.
> >>
> >> It needs to be easy to not just package some code, but also to share
> >> that package without hitting a bottleneck.
> >>
> > What happened to initiatives like Scheme NOW, that tried to integrate
> > various groups of developers.
>
> I did not hear from that.
>
> > Or why can't we just "steal" eggs from Chicken? (I mean it. They already
> > have that problem solved)
>
> Do you mean, integrating eggs into Guile so we could just use them?
> Conceptually what would be needed for that is a metadata field: "Works
> with Guile". And practically someone to write the integration.
>
>
There's surely many ways to approach that issue. The point is that for some
reason, Schemers from various tribes prefer to reinvent the wheel,
rather than use an existing one. (Not that I am any different)
However, I also think that these CPAN-alike solutions are far from optimal:
ideally, programming could be made an experience similar the game
"The Journey" by thatgamecompany (where you travel to your goal and
sometimes
encounter other players heading the same direction), and the repository
itself could look
more like Wikipedia (but first we'd need to start perceiveing programming as
a compact way of representing knowledge)

> Practically put: We need Andy Wingo to nitpick the tutorial about things
> >> which will cause overheads the compiler cannot fix easily — including
> >> expensive use of macros.
>
> > I definitely oppose. If Chez has something solved better, why not use
> > Chez?
>
> It’s not "why not use Chez", but rather "what should I teach new
> people?"
>
> They are already learning a new language. When I now go and point them
> towards many different implementations which differ in details of stuff
> I teach them, I’m throwing more complexity at them. More things to
> understand before even starting to write working code.
>
> I totally agree. Programmers shouldn't be concerned whether they're
using Chez or Guile or Gambit or Stalin or whatever else. Ideally, they
should do well without even knowing that such things exist.
There are Schemes, such as Kawa or Biwa or IronScheme, that are tied
to their environment, but most of them just run on the PC


> Maybe it would already help to mark the code which will work the same in
> all (r7rs) Schemes. Is there stuff which is well optimized in all
> Schemes? Who knows that? The r7rs benchmarks look like this is very much
> not the case: http://ecraven.github.io/r7rs-benchmarks/benchmark.html
>
> (Or rather, the benchmarks would ask: "why should I *not* use Chez or
> stalin for everything I do?" Because those are the fastest for most
> tasks.)
>
> But that might mean to write less elegant or efficient code to keep it
> cross-implementation. Should I rather teach new people to solve a
> problem as well as possible, or teach them to solve a problem in a
> portable way?
>
>
I think that in principle, the programmer should only focus on writing
most elegant code


> In my case, I decided to use Guile by checking Scheme
> implementations. There were three with roughly equal activity and
> features. I chose Guile, because it’s a GNU project and it has a long
> history of surviving changing maintainers, so my skills are most likely
> to stay useful.
>
>
That's interesting. I chose it by trying to add a scripting language to my
game engine written in C++. But I guess that if I was starting now, I'd
write
the whole engine in Chez (which wasn't opensource until last year)


> > The ultimate goal is not to optimize programs, but programmers.
>
> I’m not sure that I want to optimize them, I want to teach them tools to
> be more efficient and enjoy their work more (and teach myself the same).
>
>
Yeah, maybe I used a harsh word, but I meant exactly optimizing
programmers' efficiency (or if it sounds too bad, "giving them tools
to be more efficient")


> I think one important point for Scheme would be to gather some consensus
> points. The Zen of Python is part of what made that one community
> strong. There is no reason why there should not be a Zen of Scheme,
> along with implementation-specific Koans which extend it.
>
> Do you have ideas for principles which could be shared by most Schemers?
>
>
It depends on the most Schemers, not me :)
However, you can have a look at the (grand scheme) glossary that I've been
maintaining for some time:

https://github.com/plande/grand-scheme

of course, the intent is to make the glossary usable for someone else than
me,
and I can boast that I have at least one user distinct from the maintainer.
You can have a look and let me know what you think. (for now it only works
with Guile). In particular, are there any factors that could convince you to
adapt it as a base for your library, or what would you want changed
(I assume you won't stop at the README file).
Anyways, the rules (of thumb) are:


   - functions should be pure
   - language constructs that cause side-effects should be encapsulated
   with macros that limit the extent of those side-effects
   - if possible, use the quasiquote macro, rather than cons, append or list
   - prefer the use of match <http://synthcode.com/scheme/match.scm> to cond,
   if the patterns are simple
   - never use abbreviations
   - use commented prepositions to separate arguments

Also, I recently added infix syntax to Scheme, but (unlike in Racket or
David Wheeler's solutions) in the way it is still a prefix syntax. So for
example,
instead of writing (< a b), one ought to write (is a < b). The rationale is
that
prefix notation is terrible for non-symmetrical binary predicates, because
it
obscures the roles of respective arguments (in addition, (is a < b <= c)
expands
to (and (< a b) (<= b c))). I'm still not sure whether it is a good idea,
but I have
no reasons to think that it is bad either :]
[Curiously enough, I think that prefix notation in arithmetic is just fine:
(+ a b c) reads as "sum of a, b and c"]

> Also, I think that the astounding success of R provides hints with
> > regard what is needed for a programming language to gain popularity. R
> > has a large repository of packages that fills a certain niche. When I
> > advertised my Pamphlet on Hacker News, someone responded critically:
> > "are there out of the box libraries to estimate a zero inflated
> > negative binomial regression model in guile". Of course, if I knew
> > what a zero-inflated negative binomial regression model, I could
> > deliver an implementation by just explaining the notions used in that
> > phrase.
>
> I think there’s a quote which applies here: "Most people only use 20% of
> the capabilities of any program, but they do not use the same 20%."
> — Joel Spolksy, if I remember correctly.
>
> And to make people really dig into it, a programming language must work
> well for all tasks they might encounter. That’s why a comprehensive
> standard library is important: It gives the assurance that the skills
> you learn will stay useful wherever you go.
>
> There’s a nice quote from Rust folks: "people started to feel safe when
> we told them about unsafe" — someone on GNU social.
> This essentially says: they then saw that Rust could work in the
> uncomfortable way some of their tasks might require. That they could
> take it into harsher territory, if needed.
>
> I like it that you and Amirouche look a lot at the sociocultural
perspective
of programming


> > (But then again, I try to write functional programs whenever
> > possible, often consciously sacrificing time complexity of my
> > solutions, and I'm aware that not everybody will like it.)
>
> I look for ease of understanding, with functional programming techniques
> being a useful tool to reduce complexity and to simplify refactoring.
>
> But then, this is a point where we actually move into a similar
> direction out of different motives. I think the only problem here is the
> danger of assuming contradiction where there does not need to be
> any. Just different nuances of Zen :)
>
> Yes, to me the ease of understanding is also crucial. (I'd even go
further and say that undestranding is the very point of programming)

Best regards,
Panicz