Re: Around again, and docs lead role

[Robert Uhl <ruhl@4dv.net>]

rm@fabula.de writes:
>
> > My own problem has been a feeling that it's not complete.  At least,
> > trying to figure out the C bindings has been...interesting.
> 
> I had similar experiences.  The existing documentation *is* very good,
> but i was astonished to find a few undocumented jewels (well, actually
> pretty neccessary stuff:) in the header files...

Yup--exactly the problem I've had.  There are a few things (which I
cannot recall anymore) which have been right royal bears without docs.
Most of 'em I've solved by digging through headers, figuring them out
once, and then copy-pasting from then on.  Not the most elegant way to
handle things, for certain:-}

> > But other than that it's been decent.  Of course, I did have to
> > learn Scheme from SICP; it'd be nice were there an intro to Scheme
> > itself somewhere.
> 
> Hmm, there a a handfull of pretty good Scheme intros available, why
> bother duplicating these efforts (better: write a Guile-specific
> addendum for one of these).

Well, most of them seem to either be print books (which cost dough), or
written specifically for some incompatible dialect.  The bigger issue is
that I imagine most of us want Guile to become the extension package of
choice, even more popular than Perl or Python.  To be successful at
that, it's useful to have a tutorial, particularly when the language is
as odd as a Lisp dialect can seem as first.  Those unfamiliar with
Scheme who happen upon Guile are likely to skip past, scared away by the
parentheses and lack of a thorough introduction.

-- 
Robert Uhl <ruhl@4dv.net>
Il Crist ais resüstà!  El ais vairamaing resüstà!


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