3 ms·

A third naïve question: why not just use a functional subset of Scheme? It's got a well-defined syntax for key/value mappings, which is fast enough, funcalls, a

A third naïve question: why not just use a functional subset of Scheme? It's got a well-defined syntax for key/value mappings, which is fast enough, funcalls, and you can use lazy evaluation if you use a pure subset of the language. And in any rnrs complient Scheme, it's fairly trivial to make a strict functional dialect. And in Guile or Racket, it's even easier. Unfortunately, Guix doesn't do this. Which meant Guix can't guarantee referential transparency. Although if the packager is an ANY WAY competant, it will be maintained.

vertex-four 10y ago
A purely functional subset of Scheme, honestly, is different enough from most lisps that it's a new language on its own. If you're learning a new language, a new syntax isn't very hard. And there's not a terrible amount of people who think S-expressions are an inherently good syntax.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  >A purely functional subset of Scheme, honestly, is different enough from most lisps that it's a new language on its own. No, it's not. It's a cut-down Scheme: Most of your scheme knowledge would apply directly, or indirectly. Besides, even if it was a different language, it's a pre-existing one: DSSSL is pretty much this. >If you're learning a new language, a new syntax isn't very hard. Yes, but for me, the choice is learning a new language that has no other applications, save package managment, and using a subset of a language I already know. >And there's not a terrible amount of people who think S-expressions are an inherently good syntax I said from my perspective. I'm a schemer, so I'm already on board with sexprs.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    > No, it's not. It's a cut-down Scheme: Most of your scheme knowledge would apply directly, or indirectly. Only if you regularly write code using purely functional scheme in the first place. The difficulty of writing in a new language is very rarely figuring out what function calls to make, at least for me - it's about thinking in terms of the language.
    - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
      Do you know what % of scheme is fairly functional? Most of it. There are ~19 functions in r5rs that mutate state, if you count IO related functions. I have used maybe half of them, and mostly the IO ones. The rest were for mutating variables, lists, vectors, and strings. Many of those are rarely used. I mean, really, when was the last time you used set-car! or set-string!?
      - willtim 10y ago
        Scheme has little to offer out-of-the-box as a basis for Nix. It has no convenient syntax or suitable implementation for extensible records, which is the core data type of Nix.
        qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        '((extensible-records . being-key-value-maps?)) Alists are fast enough for this, and they ARE k/v maps. And support for them is in rnrs.
        vertex-four 10y ago
        They kind of suck syntax-wise though. There's no visual difference between them and any other list.
        qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        '(this is a list) '((this . is) (an . alist)) Looks pretty distinct to me.
        vertex-four 10y ago
        '((this . is) (a . list) (of . cons)) '((this . is) (an . alist)) Hey look, my list of cons looks incredibly like an alist... funny that.

vertex-four 10y ago

A purely functional subset of Scheme, honestly, is different enough from most lisps that it's a new language on its own. If you're learning a new language, a new syntax isn't very hard. And there's not a terrible amount of people who think S-expressions are an inherently good syntax.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
>A purely functional subset of Scheme, honestly, is different enough from most lisps that it's a new language on its own. No, it's not. It's a cut-down Scheme: Most of your scheme knowledge would apply directly, or indirectly. Besides, even if it was a different language, it's a pre-existing one: DSSSL is pretty much this. >If you're learning a new language, a new syntax isn't very hard. Yes, but for me, the choice is learning a new language that has no other applications, save package managment, and using a subset of a language I already know. >And there's not a terrible amount of people who think S-expressions are an inherently good syntax I said from my perspective. I'm a schemer, so I'm already on board with sexprs.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  > No, it's not. It's a cut-down Scheme: Most of your scheme knowledge would apply directly, or indirectly. Only if you regularly write code using purely functional scheme in the first place. The difficulty of writing in a new language is very rarely figuring out what function calls to make, at least for me - it's about thinking in terms of the language.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    Do you know what % of scheme is fairly functional? Most of it. There are ~19 functions in r5rs that mutate state, if you count IO related functions. I have used maybe half of them, and mostly the IO ones. The rest were for mutating variables, lists, vectors, and strings. Many of those are rarely used. I mean, really, when was the last time you used set-car! or set-string!?
    - willtim 10y ago
      Scheme has little to offer out-of-the-box as a basis for Nix. It has no convenient syntax or suitable implementation for extensible records, which is the core data type of Nix.
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        '((extensible-records . being-key-value-maps?)) Alists are fast enough for this, and they ARE k/v maps. And support for them is in rnrs.
        vertex-four 10y ago
        They kind of suck syntax-wise though. There's no visual difference between them and any other list.
        qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        '(this is a list) '((this . is) (an . alist)) Looks pretty distinct to me.
        vertex-four 10y ago
        '((this . is) (a . list) (of . cons)) '((this . is) (an . alist)) Hey look, my list of cons looks incredibly like an alist... funny that.