4 ms·

Chicken Scheme looks mighty fine

92 points by gnosis 16y ago

makmanalp 16y ago
Interestingly, the easyffi egg seems to be in "unsupported or redundant". Does anyone know why? http://wiki.call-cc.org/chicken-projects/egg-index-4.html#obsolete http://wiki.call-cc.org/chicken-projects/egg-index-4.html#ob... Also, for a nice intro, try "chicken for programmers of <x>": http://wiki.call-cc.org/chicken-for-programmers-of-other-languages http://wiki.call-cc.org/chicken-for-programmers-of-other-lan...
- klutometis 16y ago
  easyffi has been superseded by bind [1], apparently. [1] http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/bind http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/bind
reynolds 16y ago
I love Chicken Scheme. The community is awesome and tightly knit. They're always looking to help out new users. I was new to the community awhile back and got a ton of solid feedback on some work I was doing in Chicken. I published epoll bindings for Chicken after figuring out how things were done in their community. Moritz from the Chicken community recently published a Mongrel2 egg as well (http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/mongrel2 http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/mongrel2)
- cfdrake 16y ago
  As somebody looking to get into Scheme a bit, would you recommend Chicken as a good starting point for practical usage? As a newcomer, there are just so many implementations to choose from, even when I restrict myself to choosing ones that can compile to C. Racket, Chicken, Gambit, Bigloo. They all look good on paper, and all feel the same (to me) when trying them out. What sets Chicken apart from the rest? (FWIW, my research is leading me towards Chicken, but I've got that nagging voice in my head wondering if it's the right choice)
  - klutometis 16y ago
    Chicken feels like a local optimum of pragmatism and flexibility to me; Racket is larger, to be sure, but somehow overwhelming.
klutometis 16y ago
I've been using Chicken for five years to fulfill contracts for military, biotech and publishing clients. While I set out at first to disprove the axiom that "Scheme is not commercially viable;" Chicken is now my preferred method of writing performant, robust and literate code.
- snippyhollow 16y ago
  May you tell us more about it? (For things you can speak about.)
  - klutometis 16y ago
    I delivered a bizarre product for PSYOP [1] that involves crafting "lines of persuasion" for target audiences; another that prescribes chemotherapy regimens based on genetic profiles of tumors; and finally a wiki → docbook → latex compiler for textbooks. A few things that really came in handy: XML ↔ S-expression equivalence (for writing functional XML parsers); code-data unification (for structurally composing documents); arbitrary precision arithmetic; etc. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_Operations_(United_States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_Operations_(Unite...
- tomjen3 16y ago
  What kinds of tools do you use to write literate scheme programs? It seems mighty interesting.
  - klutometis 16y ago
    Org-mode [1], actually; it has various mechanisms for embedding source code fragments in documents. The fragments can be evaluated when exporting to PDF, for instance; listed; or "tangled" (extracted) and compiled. My projects usually evolve from a TODO file with source-code fragments for subproblems; then, by a process of conjugation, the fragments are tangled into viable products. The TODO captures the evolution of the project, and follows the trajectory of eventually accepted or rejected ideas. [1] http://orgmode.org/guide/Working-With-Source-Code.html http://orgmode.org/guide/Working-With-Source-Code.html
rsheridan6 16y ago
This article is from 2007. The founder of the project, Felix, stepped down some time ago, and I haven't been following it for the past few years. I'm not sure who's in charge, or what's been happening. Does anybody know the status of Chicken now?
- reynolds 16y ago
  Felix is still working on Chicken. He's also active on the mailing list. There are a number of people actively working on it as well.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- allait 16y ago
  Judging from the commit history, It seems to be pretty active: http://bugs.call-cc.org/timeline http://bugs.call-cc.org/timeline

92 points by gnosis 16y ago

Interestingly, the easyffi egg seems to be in "unsupported or redundant". Does anyone know why? http://wiki.call-cc.org/chicken-projects/egg-index-4.html#obsolete http://wiki.call-cc.org/chicken-projects/egg-index-4.html#ob... Also, for a nice intro, try "chicken for programmers of <x>": http://wiki.call-cc.org/chicken-for-programmers-of-other-languages http://wiki.call-cc.org/chicken-for-programmers-of-other-lan...

klutometis 16y ago
easyffi has been superseded by bind [1], apparently. [1] http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/bind http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/bind

reynolds 16y ago

I love Chicken Scheme. The community is awesome and tightly knit. They're always looking to help out new users. I was new to the community awhile back and got a ton of solid feedback on some work I was doing in Chicken. I published epoll bindings for Chicken after figuring out how things were done in their community. Moritz from the Chicken community recently published a Mongrel2 egg as well (http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/mongrel2 http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/mongrel2)

cfdrake 16y ago
As somebody looking to get into Scheme a bit, would you recommend Chicken as a good starting point for practical usage? As a newcomer, there are just so many implementations to choose from, even when I restrict myself to choosing ones that can compile to C. Racket, Chicken, Gambit, Bigloo. They all look good on paper, and all feel the same (to me) when trying them out. What sets Chicken apart from the rest? (FWIW, my research is leading me towards Chicken, but I've got that nagging voice in my head wondering if it's the right choice)
- klutometis 16y ago
  Chicken feels like a local optimum of pragmatism and flexibility to me; Racket is larger, to be sure, but somehow overwhelming.

klutometis 16y ago

I've been using Chicken for five years to fulfill contracts for military, biotech and publishing clients. While I set out at first to disprove the axiom that "Scheme is not commercially viable;" Chicken is now my preferred method of writing performant, robust and literate code.

snippyhollow 16y ago
May you tell us more about it? (For things you can speak about.)
- klutometis 16y ago
  I delivered a bizarre product for PSYOP [1] that involves crafting "lines of persuasion" for target audiences; another that prescribes chemotherapy regimens based on genetic profiles of tumors; and finally a wiki → docbook → latex compiler for textbooks. A few things that really came in handy: XML ↔ S-expression equivalence (for writing functional XML parsers); code-data unification (for structurally composing documents); arbitrary precision arithmetic; etc. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_Operations_(United_States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_Operations_(Unite...
tomjen3 16y ago
What kinds of tools do you use to write literate scheme programs? It seems mighty interesting.
- klutometis 16y ago
  Org-mode [1], actually; it has various mechanisms for embedding source code fragments in documents. The fragments can be evaluated when exporting to PDF, for instance; listed; or "tangled" (extracted) and compiled. My projects usually evolve from a TODO file with source-code fragments for subproblems; then, by a process of conjugation, the fragments are tangled into viable products. The TODO captures the evolution of the project, and follows the trajectory of eventually accepted or rejected ideas. [1] http://orgmode.org/guide/Working-With-Source-Code.html http://orgmode.org/guide/Working-With-Source-Code.html

rsheridan6 16y ago

This article is from 2007. The founder of the project, Felix, stepped down some time ago, and I haven't been following it for the past few years. I'm not sure who's in charge, or what's been happening. Does anybody know the status of Chicken now?

reynolds 16y ago
Felix is still working on Chicken. He's also active on the mailing list. There are a number of people actively working on it as well.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
allait 16y ago
Judging from the commit history, It seems to be pretty active: http://bugs.call-cc.org/timeline http://bugs.call-cc.org/timeline