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* Roadmap and goals?
@ 2002-04-17 12:21 Tanel Tammet
  2002-04-17 20:59 ` Neil Jerram
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Tanel Tammet @ 2002-04-17 12:21 UTC (permalink / raw)


Hi,

This here looks like a troll, but it isn't. 

I am sure the same question is asked now and then.
I looked through the site and part of email archives,
but could not find answers to my questions there.

Hence I am trying my luck with the mailing list :-)

Basically, I am wondering if anybody could tell
me something about the Guile development goals
and roadmap: what are the short-term goals,
what are the long-term goals, what are the priorities
(I mean concrete issues, not just the abstract
goal of being a good extension language).

I am asking since I was considering whether I
could possibly help with the development work. 

To do that, I'd have to understand where is
the Guile development moving, what are the prioritized
goals, crucial principles, etc. What would be
the projects inside Guile where a person
like me could possibly help.
 
Some background:

I am the original author of the Hobbit Scheme->C
compiler for SCM and although I did not work on
improving it for some years, I have recently 
taken it up again and worked a little on Hobbit
and SCM with Aubrey. I plan to continue making small
improvements for Hobbit for SCM. I can understand
the scope and goals of SCM and what are
the issues with which I could possibly help.

I am pretty happy with SCM. I have looked
briefly into bigloo and other systems, and
there are many cool things here and there.

However, I cannot really understand 
(*) what is the driving force behind Guile and
(*) what are the specific benefits of using Guile.

For example, why exactly should somebody
use Guile instead of SCM or Bigloo:
what are the specific advantages and
what is the downside. Why not use just
SCM or Bigloo (they are faster, you know :-)
There have to be answers to this question,
just that I do not know the answers.

In my brief encounters with other people
using scheme these issues have come up
now and then.

I guess it would benefit not only me 
but the Guile development and acceptance 
on a wider scale if such guides, policies,
roadmaps etc existed and were easy to locate.

Regards, 
       Tanel Tammet

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: Roadmap and goals?
@ 2002-04-20 12:55 Kirill Lisovsky
  2002-04-20 20:01 ` Rob Browning
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread
From: Kirill Lisovsky @ 2002-04-20 12:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  Cc: guile-user

Hello!

Working for a long time with a half-dozen of different Schemes in IT and CS 
projects, I've some "comparative impression". 

Tanel Tammet wrote:
> (*) what are the specific benefits of using Guile.
> 
> For example, why exactly should somebody
> use Guile instead of SCM or Bigloo:
> what are the specific advantages and
> what is the downside. Why not use just
> SCM or Bigloo (they are faster, you know :-)
> There have to be answers to this question,
> just that I do not know the answers.
>

Bigloo has nice and fast compiler but its interpreter is slow and 
compiler-incompatible. It makes sense if the application has to be compiled
rather than interpreted.
Bigloo not quite Scheme in proper-tail recursion considerations, but it's
fast and may be useful for practical purposes.
Unix-oriented.
It has a usable JVM backend also.

SCM is a good Scheme, but it has no case sensitive reader, which 
is a big disadvantage for some applications (XML is most important example 
for me). 

IMHO, PLT is most advanced and most promising "big" Scheme.
Version 200 is a great improvement, its design and principles are 
reasonable and clear. 
A lot of libraries, active development, multiple platforms, and so on ...

I like Gambit a lot, but it's not free for commercial projects.
Compiler to C.
Extremely robust.

Chicken is relatively young but already usable.  
It has a solid theoretical basis and good C interface.
Compiler to C.

Guile - it is the slowest one, I'm afraid :-)
Well, it's better _interpreter_ than Bigloo ... 
IMHO, it's main advantage is large installation/users base.
But a mess with versions: 1.7.x , 1.6.x, 1.5.x  while latest Linux distros
are using 1.4.x or even 1.3.4! 
(1.3.4 is used by RedHat 7.2 which makes a lot of installed Guiles pretty
obsolete...)
Using Guile since 1999 I'm still ignoring its latest additions
due to this zoo of versions...

As the result, I mostly use Guile to run Scheme scripts on "just OS installed" 
Linux/BSD boxes. If I'm to install some Scheme, then (usually) it is not Guile...

So, this is my point of view:
  1. Guile may have a good future as fast and compact "R5RS SIOD" with
a lot of (optional !) libraries.
  2. Unification of Scheme implementations will be highly desirable from the
practical point of view. Co-existence of ten "major Schemes" is a major 
practical disadvantage.
  3. PLT is best _full-blown_ Scheme implementation now. It's designed as core +
libraries. Porting (best and absent in PLT) Guile's code as PLT collections is 
most realistic way to unification.

Best regards,
         Kirill Lisovsky.

http://pair.com/lisovsky/

P.S. Forward of Nicolas's message to guile-user@gnu.org
is the reason of this posting. Please, don't consider it as  
destructive :-)

> ------- Start of forwarded message -------
> From: Nicolas Neuss <Nicolas.Neuss@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de>
> Subject: Re: Roadmap and goals?
> Date: 19 Apr 2002 10:38:06 +0200

...

> P.S.2: I thought about sending this also to guile-user@gnu.org.  I
> refrained from doing so, because Tamel did not do that, and because I
> do not want to be too destructive.  But IMHO, also users should know
> about these problems in Guile's design.  So, it remains for you
> maintainers to inform them...



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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2002-05-14  8:26 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 21+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2002-04-17 12:21 Roadmap and goals? Tanel Tammet
2002-04-17 20:59 ` Neil Jerram
2002-04-18  8:37   ` Panagiotis Vossos
2002-04-19  9:14     ` Panagiotis Vossos
2002-04-20  6:58       ` Thien-Thi Nguyen
2002-04-20 10:18         ` Panagiotis Vossos
2002-04-18 14:58   ` bitwize
2002-04-18 19:26     ` Rob Browning
2002-04-20  7:23   ` Thien-Thi Nguyen
2002-04-18  0:57 ` Christopher Cramer
2002-04-19 17:36   ` Marius Vollmer
2002-04-19  8:38 ` Nicolas Neuss
2002-04-21 15:14   ` Rob Browning
2002-04-21 22:26   ` bitwize
2002-04-22 18:36     ` Kirill Lisovsky
2002-04-23  7:53       ` rm
2002-04-23 15:11         ` Rob Browning
2002-04-20  7:47 ` Thien-Thi Nguyen
2002-05-14  8:26   ` Thien-Thi Nguyen
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2002-04-20 12:55 Kirill Lisovsky
2002-04-20 20:01 ` Rob Browning

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