From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Andy Wingo Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: Updated Guile Tutorial Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:27:40 +0200 Message-ID: References: <4A7B223E.6050501@domob.eu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1250117317 9724 80.91.229.12 (12 Aug 2009 22:48:37 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:48:37 +0000 (UTC) Cc: guile-devel To: Daniel Kraft Original-X-From: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Aug 13 00:48:30 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1MbMcP-0000LA-9K for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:48:29 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:43209 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MbMcM-00077C-US for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:48:26 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MbMRf-0002DB-Gj for guile-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:37:23 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MbMRa-0002BJ-Jg for guile-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:37:22 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=41280 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MbMRa-0002BF-Gj for guile-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:37:18 -0400 Original-Received: from a-pb-sasl-sd.pobox.com ([64.74.157.62]:53479 helo=sasl.smtp.pobox.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MbMRZ-0005vg-Oe for guile-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:37:18 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost.localdomain (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by a-pb-sasl-sd.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B3F4B27823; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:37:16 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from unquote (unknown [79.156.145.67]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by a-pb-sasl-sd.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id BFB8327822; Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:37:12 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <4A7B223E.6050501@domob.eu> (Daniel Kraft's message of "Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:34:38 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.92 (gnu/linux) X-Pobox-Relay-ID: B0173E52-8790-11DE-AA32-AEF1826986A2-02397024!a-pb-sasl-sd.pobox.com X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Solaris 10 (beta) X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:9096 Archived-At: On Thu 06 Aug 2009 20:34, Daniel Kraft writes: > the last days, I worked on a rewrite of the Guile Tutorial (with the > Tortoise package); just for fun, but also to update some stuff to my > liking and last but not least change the API usage from the deprecated > GH routines to the current scm_ ones. This is great work. Thanks for bringing our tutorial up to date! I just looked over the existing tutorial, and wow, anything that mentions Lotus 1-2-3, and fvwm... A few comments, IMO of course. Neil probably has a better perspective. 1) It would be better to have a more neutral narrator -- not a first-person narrator. If you feel like you need to speak from the first person, use "we". OTOH your style is infectious :), so perhaps it would work as "Guile Tutorial, by Daniel Kraft" :) 2) Don't mention the history of the tutorial. Just have it be a current document. 3) In general, use short sentences. Let your words breathe. 4) If you're forking to run gnuplot, why not do so from Scheme? Of course if you did that it would obviate the whole "extending C" story, but still, if given this particular problem, that's what I'd do. 5) Running a main loop (as gtk+ does) and a REPL is indeed an interesting problem. See event-repl.scm or graphical-repl.scm in guile-gnome for a couple of takes. 6) I wish we had a better Scheme->C story; our C->Scheme story is fine, but a better FFI would be nice. Anyway, IMO, FWIW, etc. If you don't reply, I'll probably just commit your tutorial more-or-less as-is to the repo :) A -- http://wingolog.org/