Flattening the learning curve of guile

Flattening the learning curve of guile

[swedebugia]

Hi

I would like to help improve the manual because the learning curve is
pretty steep at the moment (to me at least) and there a surely many good
examples and helpful think-this-way to put into it.

We could have a whole new section with:
i want to do this: x
in guile this is best done with bla bla, see this project
i want to do this: y
in guile this is best done with bla bla, see this example
...

Also the error messages really need an overhaul. Eg. the "wrong
type"-error is cryptic at best and often you have no idea where it
originates. (I noticed this in my wikidata library where it would pop up
from a low level.)

Also it would be nice to update the guile-webpage with personal stories
how people use guile and a tutorial about porting bash-scripts and
making simple scripts in guile. (we really want people to use guile
instead of bash-scripts don't we?

With simple scripts I mean a script with a main that does something with
100 lines max.

My wikidata library is already way past this so I guess I'm beyond
simple scripting already! \o/

Any thoughts?

-- 
Cheers 
Swedebugia

Re: Flattening the learning curve of guile

[sirgazil]

Hi, swedebugia :)

There is a lot one could do to make it easier for beginners to start 
using Guile. This topic has been discussed before. This is what I think 
about it:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-user/2017-02/msg00108.html


On 10/12/18 2:07 p. m., swedebugia@riseup.net wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I would like to help improve the manual because the learning curve is
> pretty steep at the moment (to me at least) and there a surely many good
> examples and helpful think-this-way to put into it.


Yes, I've found some places in the manual where examples would be 
useful. If you find the time to write examples, you can clone the 
documentation and send patches to Guile (see 
https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/contribute/).


> We could have a whole new section with:
> i want to do this: x
> in guile this is best done with bla bla, see this project
> i want to do this: y
> in guile this is best done with bla bla, see this example
> ...


Hmm, I don't know about this one. Maybe the tutorials could work for 
this, and I think the tutorials should be independent documents from the 
manual.


> Also the error messages really need an overhaul. Eg. the "wrong
> type"-error is cryptic at best and often you have no idea where it
> originates. (I noticed this in my wikidata library where it would pop up
> from a low level.)


I've seen error messages that I found hard to read too, but I didn't 
take note.


> Also it would be nice to update the guile-webpage with personal stories
> how people use guile and a tutorial about porting bash-scripts and
> making simple scripts in guile. (we really want people to use guile
> instead of bash-scripts don't we?


I think the guile for bash scripting tutorial would be a good addition 
to the currently lonely Tutorials section 
(https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/learn/).

I guess you could write the tutorial, send it to the mailing list for 
review, and patch the website to include it in the tutorials section.


> With simple scripts I mean a script with a main that does something with
> 100 lines max.
> 
> My wikidata library is already way past this so I guess I'm beyond
> simple scripting already! \o/


Now you could package it for Guix ;) (https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/).