4 ms·

the book website/author claims racket to be "the most unique programming language in the world"? Is it really, I know that racket is a scheme implementation, I

by systems 13y ago

the book website/author claims racket to be "the most unique programming language in the world"? Is it really, I know that racket is a scheme implementation, I thought scheme is to lisp what java is to c++, a saner less powerful version http://realmofracket.com/about.html http://realmofracket.com/about.html

gecko 13y ago
I actually get where the author's coming from. While it's tempting to think of Racket as a Scheme implementation, and that was at one time true, the situation these days is quite different. It's a lot more accurate to say that Racket ships with a Scheme-like default language (and an actual R5RS-compatible Scheme), but that it's actually a wonderful language toolkit. Racket has the ability for individual modules to use their own syntax. Not macros; full-fledged syntax. Racket ships with several Lisp-like syntaxes, but it also ships with Datalog and ALGOL-68. And this is very much unique to Racket.
- TylerE 13y ago
  So sort of an LLVM for languages that failed to gain acceptance outside of academia?
  - soegaard 13y ago
    No. See http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Racket http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Racket
  - samth 13y ago
    Not only is this wrong about Racket as soegaard points out, but it's wrong about Datalog too.
mjt0229 13y ago
What does "most unique" even mean? Unique is by definition singular, is it not?
- tsm 13y ago
  No. Behold, a set of unique numbers: {2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 359334085968622831041960188598043661065388726959079837} So there can be many unique things. Also, it could be argued that the last element is the "most unique" in that it has less similarities with the other members.
  - stdbrouw 13y ago
    A set of numbers unified by the fact that they're all unique in exactly the same way. Unique. Singular. :-)
mnbvcxza 13y ago
It's got standard macros, plus all of the other "languages" that come with it, like Algol, Typed Scheme, Lazy Scheme, Honu?, and others, plus the ability to make it run languages of your own design. So, I would agree with that. Maybe not if you're strictly talking about the main language "Racket" that's run by the Racket VM.
- iso8859-1 13y ago
  Typed Racket, I believe?
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Is it really, I know that racket is a scheme implementation Racket is not a Scheme implementation, which is one of the reasons it is now called "Racket" (Scheme used to be part of its name.) It is a Lisp dialect that is "a descendant of Scheme". The Racket distribution includes support for a variety of different languages (including implementations of R5RS and R6RS Scheme), but the Racket language is not a Scheme implementation.
samth 13y ago
Apart from the merits of Racket (which are considerable, you couldn't build Typed Racket in CL), the "most unique programming language in the world" is a joke about the Dos Equis ads [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Interesting_Man_in_the_World http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Interesting_Man_in_the...

by systems 13y ago

gecko 13y ago

I actually get where the author's coming from. While it's tempting to think of Racket as a Scheme implementation, and that was at one time true, the situation these days is quite different. It's a lot more accurate to say that Racket ships with a Scheme-like default language (and an actual R5RS-compatible Scheme), but that it's actually a wonderful language toolkit. Racket has the ability for individual modules to use their own syntax. Not macros; full-fledged syntax. Racket ships with several Lisp-like syntaxes, but it also ships with Datalog and ALGOL-68. And this is very much unique to Racket.

TylerE 13y ago
So sort of an LLVM for languages that failed to gain acceptance outside of academia?
- soegaard 13y ago
  No. See http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Racket http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Racket
- samth 13y ago
  Not only is this wrong about Racket as soegaard points out, but it's wrong about Datalog too.

mjt0229 13y ago

What does "most unique" even mean? Unique is by definition singular, is it not?

tsm 13y ago
No. Behold, a set of unique numbers: {2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 359334085968622831041960188598043661065388726959079837} So there can be many unique things. Also, it could be argued that the last element is the "most unique" in that it has less similarities with the other members.
- stdbrouw 13y ago
  A set of numbers unified by the fact that they're all unique in exactly the same way. Unique. Singular. :-)

mnbvcxza 13y ago

It's got standard macros, plus all of the other "languages" that come with it, like Algol, Typed Scheme, Lazy Scheme, Honu?, and others, plus the ability to make it run languages of your own design. So, I would agree with that. Maybe not if you're strictly talking about the main language "Racket" that's run by the Racket VM.

iso8859-1 13y ago
Typed Racket, I believe?

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Is it really, I know that racket is a scheme implementation Racket is not a Scheme implementation, which is one of the reasons it is now called "Racket" (Scheme used to be part of its name.) It is a Lisp dialect that is "a descendant of Scheme". The Racket distribution includes support for a variety of different languages (including implementations of R5RS and R6RS Scheme), but the Racket language is not a Scheme implementation.

samth 13y ago

Apart from the merits of Racket (which are considerable, you couldn't build Typed Racket in CL), the "most unique programming language in the world" is a joke about the Dos Equis ads [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Interesting_Man_in_the_World http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Interesting_Man_in_the...