10 ms·

Racket v7.2

225 points by ethelward 8y ago

jashmatthews 8y ago
Matthew Flatt did an excellent talk "Incremental Parallelization of Dynamic Languages" on Racket https://air.mozilla.org/incremental-parallelization-of-dynamic-languages/ https://air.mozilla.org/incremental-parallelization-of-dynam... There's a lot of useful discussion in here about parallelism which also applies to Ruby, Python, Lua etc.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing, added to my watch list.
- pritambaral 8y ago
  Is this video available without a login?
  - jashmatthews 8y ago
    Not that I've seen but there's a paper: https://www.cs.utah.edu/plt/publications/dls11-tsffd.pdf https://www.cs.utah.edu/plt/publications/dls11-tsffd.pdf
  - yorwba 8y ago
    Using Firefox on Android with uBlock Origin enabled, I was redirected to some "onlinexperiences.com" site that displayed "System Check" and then a constantly growing number of lines containing only "Browser". Then I tried the stock Android Browser and it passed the browser check, but redirected to a login page. Going back to Firefox and disabling uBlock Origin, I was able to access a description of the talk and the video itself. So I conclude that the video is available without login, but you have to use Firefox and allow yourself to be tracked. Pretty grating "online experience" for something hosted on a mozilla.org subdomain. Edit: the video file is here: https://airmo-7feeef12f503ef5d.s3.amazonaws.com/2014/02/06/4q6e6u-hd_mp4.mp4 https://airmo-7feeef12f503ef5d.s3.amazonaws.com/2014/02/06/4...
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      Very bizarrely for something on mozilla.org, it incorrectly believes my firefox is out of date: https://i.imgur.com/BRNBDPj.png https://i.imgur.com/BRNBDPj.png I think there must be a cultural disconnect between how people at Mozilla use firefox, and how users like us use Firefox.
      - detaro 8y ago
        AFAIK air.mozilla.org is some ready-made product by a different company (maybe even run by them), not developed by Mozilla
    - dkersten 8y ago
      The site crashed my browser... very strange.
IngoBlechschmid 8y ago
Mike Sperber used Racket in his excellent 35c3 talk "How to teach programming to your loved ones": https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9800-how_to_teach_programming_to_your_loved_ones https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9800-how_to_teach_programming_to... From the abstract: "A word of warning: The resulting approach is radically different from most teaching approaches used in universities and schools. In particular, it avoids teaching purely through examples and expecting students to develop the skills to arrive at the solutions on their own. Instead, it eaches explicit methodology that enables students to solve problems of surprising complexity on their own, whether they are 11 or 55, whether in a classroom, a training facility, or your home. Extensive documentation, material, and software to support this methodology is available for free."
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing, added to my watch list.
- morenoh149 8y ago
  for those that use lists on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BleOgPhsdfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BleOgPhsdfc
- webwanderings 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing. Nice. I'm not a programmer but I have taken many courses all over the web (I think I only lack practice). This talk reminds me of the Edx course on functional programming using DrRacket. As the talk suggests about the boring and bureaucratic aspect of the recipe design, I think that's exactly the reason why I couldn't finish that Edx course twice, though I am convinced that this design/recipe methodology to learning to program, is the right solution (which is absent from the pedagogy of a lot of courses). This talk makes me want to try and take that edx course again, the third time!
  - WoodenChair 8y ago
    If a methodology doesn't motivate you to actually do the work (i.e. finish the course) no matter how intuitive it might be, it will not work. That said of course everyone is different, and what motivates one person, may not motivate another.
kumarvvr 8y ago
Does anyone use this in production? Will this be a good platform to develop a DSL for a web app?
- jboynyc 8y ago
  Here's a little write-up from somebody who uses Racket in production in a commercial web product: https://www.greghendershott.com/2018/05/extramaze-llc-using-racket-postgresql-aws-but-no-ads-or-js.html https://www.greghendershott.com/2018/05/extramaze-llc-using-...
  - mac01021 8y ago
    Maybe it's been up here before, but I feel that article is worth thread of it's own.
- mac_was 8y ago
  I do not think so as this has bern mainly created for teaching but recently I had the same question
  - Gene_Parmesan 8y ago
    Well don't let Hacker News overhear you. The specialized lang they used to make and run the site, Arc, is written in Racket. Moreso than being mainly created for teaching, Racket was created mainly as an environment for creating languages. Its forte is language development and implementation. This is useful in education, because it allowed them to easily create a number of 'teaching languages,' which are all essentially Racket with training wheels. But that doesn't mean the base language + environment is only useful in education. I might even call it the most usable and productive LISP currently in wide use. (I greatly prefer it over Clojure, for instance.)
- magpi3 8y ago
  Doesn't HN use Racket? Edit: according to wikipedia Arc, which HN is written in, is developed in Racket
seertaak 8y ago
Racket is such a cool project. I keep telling myself I'll find the time to do something serious with it, but I never get around to it. One minor bit of criticism - would be it be so hard/expensive to hire a designer to do some minor touching up of the DrRacket GUI? It looks like a toy, and the icons didn't even look good in 1998. I'll balance this criticism with the remark that any language/platform that manages to a) add, ex-post, a type system, b) fix the Gordian knot of modules and macros, and c) has the audacity (combined, curiously, with humility) to just swap out the entire backend to eek out more performance, deserves my respect. In addition both Flatt and Tobin-Hochstadt give excellent presentations where it's impossible not to notice their passion for Racket. They're definitely among my nerd heroes right now.
- dhuramas 8y ago
  python comes with IDLE. Which looks dated w.r.t current IDEs. I guess for most languages, stability is the key - changing UI also means maintaining two different UIs(the old and the new)- that time could probably be better spent on language features.
  - jnbiche 8y ago
    > changing UI also means maintaining two different UIs(the old and the new)- Why would you need to maintain the old UI? Backwards compatibility isn't an issue, since no one is screenscraping and doing image recognition to interact with the UI. Besides, what we're discussing are relatively minor changes to update appearance, such as different font, color scheme, graphics assets, etc. No significant changes wrt UX--with how the user interacts with the program.
    - chriswarbo 8y ago
      For more extensive changes, I imagine a whole load of screenshot-heavy documentation would need updating (probably a load of course notes, inherited from long-gone lecturers too). I agree that shouldn't be an issue though. Those who don't want any change (e.g. lecturers) can stick with an old version.
  - 8y ago
lettergram 8y ago
I’ve used Racket in the past. Personally, I’d still never use it for production because the learning curve is fairly steep AND as this post highlights - there are still bugs being worked out in basic features like “set”. However, overall I like the language. So, overtime I think it’ll have its day in the sun.
- soegaard 8y ago
  > there are still bugs being worked out in basic features like “set”. You are misreading the release notes. What was fixed is a Redex model (a tool used in semantics to model computer languages). A change to the modeling of `set!` (assignment) was made. It has no impact on Racket itself.
  - maxiepoo 8y ago
    Really? Then as written it's very misleading "led to some bug fixes in Racket’s implementation of letrec and set!."
    - Gene_Parmesan 8y ago
      [Edit -- misread comment.]
      - clacke2 8y ago
        If it is in fact the case that only some redex models of `letrec` and `set!` were fixed, then it is indeed misleading that the release notes say "Racket's implementation" of them was fixed. Unless you're the one who did the work, I'd rather trust the release notes than your unsourced assertion. That said, just because a bug was fixed in an important function shouldn't be an indictment against the language. Racket is stable and productive, and formal modeling can reveal all kinds of corner cases which may not have been exposed in typical use, and may not have security implications. Maybe it was edge-case performance, maybe garbage collection, the release notes simply don't say. I'd rather use a language whose authors improve their tools to discover and fix issues than one where this doesn't happen.
kovrik 8y ago
I just wanted to say that Racket docs are the best docs I have ever seen. It feels they document everything -- so much detail. Treasure trove of knowledge. Thanks guys!

225 points by ethelward 8y ago

Matthew Flatt did an excellent talk "Incremental Parallelization of Dynamic Languages" on Racket https://air.mozilla.org/incremental-parallelization-of-dynamic-languages/ https://air.mozilla.org/incremental-parallelization-of-dynam... There's a lot of useful discussion in here about parallelism which also applies to Ruby, Python, Lua etc.

pjmlp 8y ago
Thanks for sharing, added to my watch list.
pritambaral 8y ago
Is this video available without a login?
- jashmatthews 8y ago
  Not that I've seen but there's a paper: https://www.cs.utah.edu/plt/publications/dls11-tsffd.pdf https://www.cs.utah.edu/plt/publications/dls11-tsffd.pdf
- yorwba 8y ago
  Using Firefox on Android with uBlock Origin enabled, I was redirected to some "onlinexperiences.com" site that displayed "System Check" and then a constantly growing number of lines containing only "Browser". Then I tried the stock Android Browser and it passed the browser check, but redirected to a login page. Going back to Firefox and disabling uBlock Origin, I was able to access a description of the talk and the video itself. So I conclude that the video is available without login, but you have to use Firefox and allow yourself to be tracked. Pretty grating "online experience" for something hosted on a mozilla.org subdomain. Edit: the video file is here: https://airmo-7feeef12f503ef5d.s3.amazonaws.com/2014/02/06/4q6e6u-hd_mp4.mp4 https://airmo-7feeef12f503ef5d.s3.amazonaws.com/2014/02/06/4...
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    Very bizarrely for something on mozilla.org, it incorrectly believes my firefox is out of date: https://i.imgur.com/BRNBDPj.png https://i.imgur.com/BRNBDPj.png I think there must be a cultural disconnect between how people at Mozilla use firefox, and how users like us use Firefox.
    - detaro 8y ago
      AFAIK air.mozilla.org is some ready-made product by a different company (maybe even run by them), not developed by Mozilla
  - dkersten 8y ago
    The site crashed my browser... very strange.

IngoBlechschmid 8y ago

Mike Sperber used Racket in his excellent 35c3 talk "How to teach programming to your loved ones": https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9800-how_to_teach_programming_to_your_loved_ones https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9800-how_to_teach_programming_to... From the abstract: "A word of warning: The resulting approach is radically different from most teaching approaches used in universities and schools. In particular, it avoids teaching purely through examples and expecting students to develop the skills to arrive at the solutions on their own. Instead, it eaches explicit methodology that enables students to solve problems of surprising complexity on their own, whether they are 11 or 55, whether in a classroom, a training facility, or your home. Extensive documentation, material, and software to support this methodology is available for free."

pjmlp 8y ago
Thanks for sharing, added to my watch list.
morenoh149 8y ago
for those that use lists on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BleOgPhsdfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BleOgPhsdfc
webwanderings 8y ago
Thanks for sharing. Nice. I'm not a programmer but I have taken many courses all over the web (I think I only lack practice). This talk reminds me of the Edx course on functional programming using DrRacket. As the talk suggests about the boring and bureaucratic aspect of the recipe design, I think that's exactly the reason why I couldn't finish that Edx course twice, though I am convinced that this design/recipe methodology to learning to program, is the right solution (which is absent from the pedagogy of a lot of courses). This talk makes me want to try and take that edx course again, the third time!
- WoodenChair 8y ago
  If a methodology doesn't motivate you to actually do the work (i.e. finish the course) no matter how intuitive it might be, it will not work. That said of course everyone is different, and what motivates one person, may not motivate another.

kumarvvr 8y ago

Does anyone use this in production? Will this be a good platform to develop a DSL for a web app?

jboynyc 8y ago
Here's a little write-up from somebody who uses Racket in production in a commercial web product: https://www.greghendershott.com/2018/05/extramaze-llc-using-racket-postgresql-aws-but-no-ads-or-js.html https://www.greghendershott.com/2018/05/extramaze-llc-using-...
- mac01021 8y ago
  Maybe it's been up here before, but I feel that article is worth thread of it's own.
mac_was 8y ago
I do not think so as this has bern mainly created for teaching but recently I had the same question
- Gene_Parmesan 8y ago
  Well don't let Hacker News overhear you. The specialized lang they used to make and run the site, Arc, is written in Racket. Moreso than being mainly created for teaching, Racket was created mainly as an environment for creating languages. Its forte is language development and implementation. This is useful in education, because it allowed them to easily create a number of 'teaching languages,' which are all essentially Racket with training wheels. But that doesn't mean the base language + environment is only useful in education. I might even call it the most usable and productive LISP currently in wide use. (I greatly prefer it over Clojure, for instance.)
magpi3 8y ago
Doesn't HN use Racket? Edit: according to wikipedia Arc, which HN is written in, is developed in Racket

seertaak 8y ago

Racket is such a cool project. I keep telling myself I'll find the time to do something serious with it, but I never get around to it. One minor bit of criticism - would be it be so hard/expensive to hire a designer to do some minor touching up of the DrRacket GUI? It looks like a toy, and the icons didn't even look good in 1998. I'll balance this criticism with the remark that any language/platform that manages to a) add, ex-post, a type system, b) fix the Gordian knot of modules and macros, and c) has the audacity (combined, curiously, with humility) to just swap out the entire backend to eek out more performance, deserves my respect. In addition both Flatt and Tobin-Hochstadt give excellent presentations where it's impossible not to notice their passion for Racket. They're definitely among my nerd heroes right now.

dhuramas 8y ago
python comes with IDLE. Which looks dated w.r.t current IDEs. I guess for most languages, stability is the key - changing UI also means maintaining two different UIs(the old and the new)- that time could probably be better spent on language features.
- jnbiche 8y ago
  > changing UI also means maintaining two different UIs(the old and the new)- Why would you need to maintain the old UI? Backwards compatibility isn't an issue, since no one is screenscraping and doing image recognition to interact with the UI. Besides, what we're discussing are relatively minor changes to update appearance, such as different font, color scheme, graphics assets, etc. No significant changes wrt UX--with how the user interacts with the program.
  - chriswarbo 8y ago
    For more extensive changes, I imagine a whole load of screenshot-heavy documentation would need updating (probably a load of course notes, inherited from long-gone lecturers too). I agree that shouldn't be an issue though. Those who don't want any change (e.g. lecturers) can stick with an old version.
- 8y ago

lettergram 8y ago

I’ve used Racket in the past. Personally, I’d still never use it for production because the learning curve is fairly steep AND as this post highlights - there are still bugs being worked out in basic features like “set”. However, overall I like the language. So, overtime I think it’ll have its day in the sun.

soegaard 8y ago
> there are still bugs being worked out in basic features like “set”. You are misreading the release notes. What was fixed is a Redex model (a tool used in semantics to model computer languages). A change to the modeling of `set!` (assignment) was made. It has no impact on Racket itself.
- maxiepoo 8y ago
  Really? Then as written it's very misleading "led to some bug fixes in Racket’s implementation of letrec and set!."
  - Gene_Parmesan 8y ago
    [Edit -- misread comment.]
    - clacke2 8y ago
      If it is in fact the case that only some redex models of `letrec` and `set!` were fixed, then it is indeed misleading that the release notes say "Racket's implementation" of them was fixed. Unless you're the one who did the work, I'd rather trust the release notes than your unsourced assertion. That said, just because a bug was fixed in an important function shouldn't be an indictment against the language. Racket is stable and productive, and formal modeling can reveal all kinds of corner cases which may not have been exposed in typical use, and may not have security implications. Maybe it was edge-case performance, maybe garbage collection, the release notes simply don't say. I'd rather use a language whose authors improve their tools to discover and fix issues than one where this doesn't happen.

kovrik 8y ago

I just wanted to say that Racket docs are the best docs I have ever seen. It feels they document everything -- so much detail. Treasure trove of knowledge. Thanks guys!