9 ms·

LambdaNative – A cross-platform development environment written in Scheme

129 points by mike_ivanov 12y ago

ArtB 12y ago
I'm still not clear on what this library actually does...
- mrcsparker 12y ago
  It lets you write applications for Android, iOS, BlackBerry 10, OS X, Linux, Windows, OpenBSD, NetBSD and OpenWrt in Scheme.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- ics 12y ago
  It's an application development framework for Gambit-C Scheme which compiles natively to a bunch of popular platforms. It comes with a few sample apps in the repository. glGUI seems to be used for the interfaces.
- lgas 12y ago
  The README from the github repo [1] links to a presentation [2] and paper [3] with more details. [1] https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative [2] https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/blob/master/docs/LambdaNative.pdf?raw=true https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/blob/master/docs/Lam... [3] http://ecem.ece.ubc.ca/~cpetersen/lambdanative_icfp13.pdf http://ecem.ece.ubc.ca/~cpetersen/lambdanative_icfp13.pdf
mark_l_watson 12y ago
Looks very nice. I look forward to experimenting with it. I used to use Gambit-C for command line utilities and misc. applications.
- jsgrahamus 12y ago
  Mark, I believe you reviewed mocl. It would be interesting to see your comparison of the two.
  - mark_l_watson 12y ago
    I am sorry I did not see your question earlier. mocl is very interesting, but I only played with it. I think mocl's value lies in using Common Lisp code for the logic of an app, but still have some iOS or Android specific UI glue. I would love to spend time experimenting more with mocl and Gambit-C for building apps, but, my real business is in text analytics and AI.
    - register 12y ago
      Just a few words to tell my experience with the tool: ./configure make ERROR: required tool wget not found. brew install wget ERROR: required tool gs not found. brew install gs ERROR: required tool convert not found. brew install ImageMagick ERROR: required tool xelatex not found. LATEX???? -> GOODBYE
      - matthias3 12y ago
        In case you want to change your mind XeTeX is now optional. Please note that there were good reasons to require it, as we do projects in languages having right-to-left script, or use higher Unicode characters (such as Kannada).
Turing_Machine 12y ago
That is pretty darned sweet. I had been playing around with interfacing BiwaScheme (written in JS) to PhoneGap, but if this works as well cross-platform as it does when compiling for the host system, that project just went on the back burner, quite possibly permanently. :-) Looks outstanding!
Gonzih 12y ago
Would be lovely to see some screenshots on homepage.
- j_s 12y ago
  Here is the last page of their presentation; screenshots of apps on multiple devices (most are completely custom UI): http://i.imgur.com/MrPKU4s.png http://i.imgur.com/MrPKU4s.png Also, the 'Disadvantages' mentioned: * limited native GUI (messaging, camera) * limits of OpenGL (text handling)
- matthiasg 12y ago
  http://www.lambdanative.org/applications.html http://www.lambdanative.org/applications.html has a whole bunch of them. Also look at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.bccw.rrate&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.bccw.rrate&... or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ecemgroup.teleport&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ecemgroup....
carloscm 12y ago
Keep in mind LambdaNative appears to be very opinionated about things like project structure (your code goes in this folder and is named like this), files (your images must be in this format and must be copied to this folder) or UI (your code must implement this kind of view, always, in this way). At first it looked really nice to see somebody already did all the grunt work to prepare Gambit-C for all those platforms (specially mobile), but the constraints were too much for me. Impressive project but not for every app.
- ptx 12y ago
  > your code must implement this kind of view, always, in this way Could you elaborate on this? It seemed the opposite to me: I implemented my own view/activity stack, calculated button positions in pixels (no layouts), explicitly specified which keyboard to draw where and when, and so on. Did I miss all the structure?
  - carloscm 12y ago
    It was the glgui library that gave me that impression. It's true that there appears to be no built-in high level concept of a view as a container/ layout holder/ etc, we are talking about different things. I should rephrase that as "kind of GUI as long as you don't want to dive into raw OpenGL". It was more like, if I want to change how a button is drawn, do I have change the internals of the framework or is that a user-level supported API?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - matthiasg 12y ago
      https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/wiki/Function-300 https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/wiki/Function-300 has containers. If you just want to change the button properties take a look at https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/wiki/Function-296 https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/wiki/Function-296 , you can even replace the texture on the fly (will have to find you an example).

129 points by mike_ivanov 12y ago

ArtB 12y ago

I'm still not clear on what this library actually does...

mrcsparker 12y ago
It lets you write applications for Android, iOS, BlackBerry 10, OS X, Linux, Windows, OpenBSD, NetBSD and OpenWrt in Scheme.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
ics 12y ago
It's an application development framework for Gambit-C Scheme which compiles natively to a bunch of popular platforms. It comes with a few sample apps in the repository. glGUI seems to be used for the interfaces.
lgas 12y ago
The README from the github repo [1] links to a presentation [2] and paper [3] with more details. [1] https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative [2] https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/blob/master/docs/LambdaNative.pdf?raw=true https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/blob/master/docs/Lam... [3] http://ecem.ece.ubc.ca/~cpetersen/lambdanative_icfp13.pdf http://ecem.ece.ubc.ca/~cpetersen/lambdanative_icfp13.pdf

mark_l_watson 12y ago

Looks very nice. I look forward to experimenting with it. I used to use Gambit-C for command line utilities and misc. applications.

jsgrahamus 12y ago
Mark, I believe you reviewed mocl. It would be interesting to see your comparison of the two.
- mark_l_watson 12y ago
  I am sorry I did not see your question earlier. mocl is very interesting, but I only played with it. I think mocl's value lies in using Common Lisp code for the logic of an app, but still have some iOS or Android specific UI glue. I would love to spend time experimenting more with mocl and Gambit-C for building apps, but, my real business is in text analytics and AI.
  - register 12y ago
    Just a few words to tell my experience with the tool: ./configure make ERROR: required tool wget not found. brew install wget ERROR: required tool gs not found. brew install gs ERROR: required tool convert not found. brew install ImageMagick ERROR: required tool xelatex not found. LATEX???? -> GOODBYE
    - matthias3 12y ago
      In case you want to change your mind XeTeX is now optional. Please note that there were good reasons to require it, as we do projects in languages having right-to-left script, or use higher Unicode characters (such as Kannada).

Turing_Machine 12y ago

That is pretty darned sweet. I had been playing around with interfacing BiwaScheme (written in JS) to PhoneGap, but if this works as well cross-platform as it does when compiling for the host system, that project just went on the back burner, quite possibly permanently. :-) Looks outstanding!

Gonzih 12y ago

Would be lovely to see some screenshots on homepage.

j_s 12y ago
Here is the last page of their presentation; screenshots of apps on multiple devices (most are completely custom UI): http://i.imgur.com/MrPKU4s.png http://i.imgur.com/MrPKU4s.png Also, the 'Disadvantages' mentioned: * limited native GUI (messaging, camera) * limits of OpenGL (text handling)
matthiasg 12y ago
http://www.lambdanative.org/applications.html http://www.lambdanative.org/applications.html has a whole bunch of them. Also look at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.bccw.rrate&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.bccw.rrate&... or https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ecemgroup.teleport&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ecemgroup....

carloscm 12y ago

Keep in mind LambdaNative appears to be very opinionated about things like project structure (your code goes in this folder and is named like this), files (your images must be in this format and must be copied to this folder) or UI (your code must implement this kind of view, always, in this way). At first it looked really nice to see somebody already did all the grunt work to prepare Gambit-C for all those platforms (specially mobile), but the constraints were too much for me. Impressive project but not for every app.

ptx 12y ago
> your code must implement this kind of view, always, in this way Could you elaborate on this? It seemed the opposite to me: I implemented my own view/activity stack, calculated button positions in pixels (no layouts), explicitly specified which keyboard to draw where and when, and so on. Did I miss all the structure?
- carloscm 12y ago
  It was the glgui library that gave me that impression. It's true that there appears to be no built-in high level concept of a view as a container/ layout holder/ etc, we are talking about different things. I should rephrase that as "kind of GUI as long as you don't want to dive into raw OpenGL". It was more like, if I want to change how a button is drawn, do I have change the internals of the framework or is that a user-level supported API?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - matthiasg 12y ago
    https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/wiki/Function-300 https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/wiki/Function-300 has containers. If you just want to change the button properties take a look at https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/wiki/Function-296 https://github.com/part-cw/lambdanative/wiki/Function-296 , you can even replace the texture on the fly (will have to find you an example).