Re: Scheme/lisp and music was: Common Lisp
On Mon, Oct 16, 2000 at 08:45:00AM -0700, Stephen A. Witt wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, Thomas Guettler wrote:
>
> > Hi all!
> >
> > I want to learn lisp or scheme, too. I have read the faqs at
> > www.faqs.org, and I am still not convinced which language I should
> > start to learn. Scheme is much smaller, Common Lisp has more
> > libraries....
> >
> > What I want to do: I want to make some electronic music. I am dreaming
> > of accessing the ALSA-sequencer via lisp. A song could be a list of
> > parts, and a part a list of notes...
> >
> > Can some help me choosing a language (lisp/scheme).
> > Book-recommendations are welcome!
> >
>
> A few years ago I was working on an experimental expert system project
> using an expert system shell that was written in LISP. All of the actions
> that happened when a rule fired were LISP functions. It was great and I
> loved programming in that language. I would probably recommend Scheme as I
> think it is an improvement to LISP in some ways, most dealing with the
> structure of the language. The problem with Scheme is that there haven't
> been practical interpreter/compilers for it, unlike LISP which has more
> mature tools for doing practical programming. By "practical" I mean having
> useful libraries for doing real work, such as Python or Perl have.
Hi Stephen.
As long that there is a binding to "normal" libraries written in C, I
think I will have all I am searching for.
> Scheme
> seems to be a little more academic and frankly, functional computer
> lanuguages (like Scheme or LISP) are not in vogue right now. I think
> object oriented languages are the "thing" right now, so Java and C++ seem
> to be very popular.
I programmed a little LISP some years ago. I had the idea to start to
learn it when I worked with XML. In XML you have one element which can
elements, in Lisp you have a list of lists.
> But I must admit it has probably been a couple of
> years since I searched around for a good Scheme interpreter/compiler. I
> was hoping that Guile would become that and maybe it has. I suppose I'll
> have to check back with that project and see where its at.
I heard good things from Guile.
> In terms of a book recommendation, one of the classics (IMHO) of computer
> science uses Scheme as its example language. It is "Structure and
> Interpretation of Computer Programs". Great book.
I will look at it.
> You realize, I hope, that you will have to use Emacs if you intend to
> program in LISP or Scheme. It is simply the only editor that will do :).
Dad, why do we hide from the police? They use emacs, son, we use vi ....
(No, was a joke, I use emacs where ever I can. (emacs -nw))
--
Thomas Guettler
Office: <guettli@interface-business.de> www.interface-business.de
Private:<guettli@gmx.de> http://yi.org/guettli
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