From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Linas Vepstas Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.user Subject: Re: guile user base Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:14:35 -0600 Message-ID: References: <20111123233913.GA7011@shuttle.happyleptic.org> <87y5v1gq76.fsf@gnu.org> Reply-To: linasvepstas@gmail.com NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1322439312 17657 80.91.229.12 (28 Nov 2011 00:15:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:15:12 +0000 (UTC) Cc: guile-user@gnu.org To: =?UTF-8?Q?Ludovic_Court=C3=A8s?= Original-X-From: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Nov 28 01:15:07 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-user@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RUosC-0007v0-GP for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Mon, 28 Nov 2011 01:15:04 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:49993 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RUosB-0002nT-SD for guile-user@m.gmane.org; Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:15:03 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:52502) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RUos6-0002nH-NV for guile-user@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:14:59 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RUos5-0003Sd-CY for guile-user@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:14:58 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-bw0-f41.google.com ([209.85.214.41]:52122) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RUos5-0003SV-2t; Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:14:57 -0500 Original-Received: by bke17 with SMTP id 17so8630341bke.0 for ; Sun, 27 Nov 2011 16:14:56 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:reply-to:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id :subject:to:cc:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=wW5BHMXms+MmJDwg6iJ9a1/G5iApmv2u2bWosBml4/g=; b=pSIL8ZhVfQRIUL6xY2YbwEsDowtgpOYm35HeQIPQBDQxHBkyxJAxbRji7Ol2Z/WejS hDVg3PVrh95a9lk8de9+iwwXddtNwnEZx31bNCSAGJFH49aVwhr0DdxFJL1AhB6WlDdy Gp9+Lz8uB5Yi1KBQmQnLPYozP3XERGcaRApeo= Original-Received: by 10.205.133.16 with SMTP id hw16mr41686013bkc.128.1322439296198; Sun, 27 Nov 2011 16:14:56 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: by 10.223.85.197 with HTTP; Sun, 27 Nov 2011 16:14:35 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <87y5v1gq76.fsf@gnu.org> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 209.85.214.41 X-BeenThere: guile-user@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: General Guile related discussions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: guile-user-bounces+guile-user=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.user:9006 Archived-At: On 27 November 2011 16:23, Ludovic Court=C3=A8s wrote: > Hi! > > I don=E2=80=99t have any data to answer your question. It also seems to = me that > the Racket and Chicken communities are very active, and have good tools > for that, such as PLaneT and Eggs. The guile projects page is skimpy, because its not maintained: I know of five projects using guile that are not listed: gnucash, g-wrap, gnome time-tracker, opencog and guile-db. gnucash has been using guile for more than a decade, but is still not listed... > etc.), and socially, it targets free software hackers in general and not > just Schemers or functional programmers (I=E2=80=99m not arguing on wheth= er it=E2=80=99s Socially, it clearly hasn't attracted the kinds of people who insist on volunteering to run a wiki, a newsletter, etc. Successful projects tend to have fan clubs of users who aren't (strong) programmers, but fall into the class of power users who really want to promote their favorite hobby. I don't see that guile has any of these. One of the ways that one gets this sort of attention is brag lists of things that you think you do really well, especially when the thing is both arcane and powerful: the sense of leading edge, being created by really smart people who know their shit, are mind-share leaders (technically impressive, hip, coool, etc.) Certainly, the racket guys have achieved this, with their description of why they changed the name to 'racket': they've got a bunch of new cool whiz-bang features that sound impressive. So, e.g. when I mention scheme in a conversation, people who more or less don't really know what lisp is will still say 'oh like racket', because its something they'd heard of, seen mentioned, and read up on. Come the day they decide to learn scheme, for real, they'll pick the one they'd heard of before. (guile could do this by bragging e.g. that there's a mini-javascript interpreter or something like that on top of the guile VM and that would impress people, even though they are neither javascript nor scheme programmers: but they'd think it was cool, and it proves some sort of general notion of expressiveness or power.) > FWIW, Debian=E2=80=99s popularity contest shows these ranks (see > ): > > 868 guile-1.8-libs > 15462 racket-common > 24184 libchicken5 I was going to complain about these numbers before I noted that they were the *rank* not the number of users. So lower number =3D=3D more users. --linas