5 ms·

Why use this over Chicken Scheme?

progre 5y ago
I'm unqualified to answer since I haven't used Chicken Scheme, but the name implies that it's a Scheme, right? Janet is a "modern" lisp-like with [] and {} for arrays and maps. Also, I think Chicken compiles to C? Janet compiles to bytecode.
tut-urut-utut 5y ago
While we are at this topic: why use Chicken Scheme over this?
- oshiar53-0 5y ago
  or, maybe newLISP and vice-versa
  - michaelsbradley 5y ago
    Gerbil? https://cons.io/ https://cons.io/
- outworlder 5y ago
  Decent amount of libraries (eggs) for one(and a package manager). Follows a language spec (R5RS). Then we get to the personal preferences territory. You may prefer a Scheme(with its hygienic macros and other goodies). Or the way it generates C code (which is then compiled). As an example. At one time I was experimenting with writing iOS games in Scheme. The usual option would be cross-compilation. I would cross compile my Scheme program as a library and add the to project. But XCode is annoying because it wants ARM code for the actual device, and X86 code for the simulator. Rather than building a complicated build system, I just told Chicken to stop at C code generation, then added the generated code to the XCode project. XCode could now compile the entire thing as if it was all C+Objective C code in the first place. Add a couple of instructions for the actual embedding and there's my hybrid Scheme+Objective C program. Related to the example above, I was missing an OpenGL ES library. But I found a similar library from Gambit Scheme. Given that they are both Scheme, the code would work with almost no changes. The only changes were related to the foreign function interface (to call C), which were not standardized. So I just wrote a 'compatibility' macro, and the code would now run. Ultimately though, it's all up to you. I'm just happy there's always some healthy baseline interest in Lisp-like languages.
ranit 5y ago
A copy-paste from "Use Cases" in Janet's README.md: Janet makes a good system scripting language, or a language to embed in other programs. It's like Lua and Guile in that regard. It has more built-in functionality and a richer core language than Lua, but smaller than GNU Guile or Python.
- asimjalis 5y ago
  I like using Hy for these use cases. Because it gives you access to all of the Python module ecosystem while staying in a Lisp-like language.
- outworlder 5y ago
  Chicken Scheme also makes a good language to embed in other programs. As does Gambit. They are Schemes though.

I'm unqualified to answer since I haven't used Chicken Scheme, but the name implies that it's a Scheme, right? Janet is a "modern" lisp-like with [] and {} for arrays and maps. Also, I think Chicken compiles to C? Janet compiles to bytecode.

tut-urut-utut 5y ago

While we are at this topic: why use Chicken Scheme over this?

oshiar53-0 5y ago
or, maybe newLISP and vice-versa
- michaelsbradley 5y ago
  Gerbil? https://cons.io/ https://cons.io/
outworlder 5y ago
Decent amount of libraries (eggs) for one(and a package manager). Follows a language spec (R5RS). Then we get to the personal preferences territory. You may prefer a Scheme(with its hygienic macros and other goodies). Or the way it generates C code (which is then compiled). As an example. At one time I was experimenting with writing iOS games in Scheme. The usual option would be cross-compilation. I would cross compile my Scheme program as a library and add the to project. But XCode is annoying because it wants ARM code for the actual device, and X86 code for the simulator. Rather than building a complicated build system, I just told Chicken to stop at C code generation, then added the generated code to the XCode project. XCode could now compile the entire thing as if it was all C+Objective C code in the first place. Add a couple of instructions for the actual embedding and there's my hybrid Scheme+Objective C program. Related to the example above, I was missing an OpenGL ES library. But I found a similar library from Gambit Scheme. Given that they are both Scheme, the code would work with almost no changes. The only changes were related to the foreign function interface (to call C), which were not standardized. So I just wrote a 'compatibility' macro, and the code would now run. Ultimately though, it's all up to you. I'm just happy there's always some healthy baseline interest in Lisp-like languages.

ranit 5y ago

A copy-paste from "Use Cases" in Janet's README.md: Janet makes a good system scripting language, or a language to embed in other programs. It's like Lua and Guile in that regard. It has more built-in functionality and a richer core language than Lua, but smaller than GNU Guile or Python.

asimjalis 5y ago
I like using Hy for these use cases. Because it gives you access to all of the Python module ecosystem while staying in a Lisp-like language.
outworlder 5y ago
Chicken Scheme also makes a good language to embed in other programs. As does Gambit. They are Schemes though.