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0 pointsgrogenaut5y ago0 comments

I did my interpreter class in Scheme in university. The main thing it taught me was I never wanted to use scheme (or lisp) and put me off of functional programming for many years.

I re-did the interpreter from that class in C++ and it made insanely more sense to me than the scheme version. I could see where scheme was going and why it was a good fit but just hated it.

That same professor taught our C++ class (while learning it, they had someone quit) the next semester and they had to actually do a do-over he was so bad at C++. To his credit he knew as much half way through the semester (he had students getting ahead of him). He basically nop'd out of C++ like I did out of Scheme. It just didn't fit his brain.

0 comments

mateioprea5y ago

We learned Scheme, Haskell, Prolog and Clips in one semester for Programming Paradigms course.

I can still remember the homework for each programming language (this was 6 years ago):

- Something with genetic algorithms in Scheme

- 2048 implementation in Haskell

- Searching in an infinite space in Prolog

- Phutball in Clips

Pretty dope if you ask me. :)

grogenautOP5y ago

Glad it was good for you. It was not for me.

agumonkey5y ago

It's interesting to have intense negative reactions to a language. Could you give details what annoyed you with scheme ?

I hope it goes beside the syntax.

1 more reply

eat_veggies5y ago

I did my interpreter/PLT class in OCaml and absolutely loved it. I yearn for things like ADTs and pattern matching in other languages I use now :'(

Another benefit (I guess the primary benefit) was that my interpreter programs written in OCaml ended up looking nearly identical to my proofs/definitions. Doing it imperatively would add a nasty layer of indirection.

BoiledCabbage5y ago

If you already knew C++, that's not a particularly useful comparison. Of course you were more comfortable reading and writing code in a language you already knew, than one you were learning.

An equivalent would be a class teaching c++ and writing and interpreter at the same time. And my gut says that would be more complex for unnecessary reasons than the class you took.

grogenautOP5y ago

I did not already know C++. I did already know Java since we did java for our intro class (101/102) and then the next year we did Compiler theory (240). But the professors who know more than me an entry level student designed this structure.

And I did write that same compiler in c++ and sure it was more lines of code but I understood it better.

I've also worked on a scheme interpreter in C++ that someone wrote in a game engine and it wasn't all that complicated.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsgrogenaut5y ago0 comments

I did my interpreter class in Scheme in university. The main thing it taught me was I never wanted to use scheme (or lisp) and put me off of functional programming for many years.

I re-did the interpreter from that class in C++ and it made insanely more sense to me than the scheme version. I could see where scheme was going and why it was a good fit but just hated it.

0 comments

mateioprea5y ago

We learned Scheme, Haskell, Prolog and Clips in one semester for Programming Paradigms course.

I can still remember the homework for each programming language (this was 6 years ago):

- Something with genetic algorithms in Scheme

- 2048 implementation in Haskell

- Searching in an infinite space in Prolog

- Phutball in Clips

Pretty dope if you ask me. :)

grogenautOP5y ago

Glad it was good for you. It was not for me.

agumonkey5y ago

It's interesting to have intense negative reactions to a language. Could you give details what annoyed you with scheme ?

I hope it goes beside the syntax.

1 more reply

eat_veggies5y ago

I did my interpreter/PLT class in OCaml and absolutely loved it. I yearn for things like ADTs and pattern matching in other languages I use now :'(

BoiledCabbage5y ago

If you already knew C++, that's not a particularly useful comparison. Of course you were more comfortable reading and writing code in a language you already knew, than one you were learning.

An equivalent would be a class teaching c++ and writing and interpreter at the same time. And my gut says that would be more complex for unnecessary reasons than the class you took.

grogenautOP5y ago

And I did write that same compiler in c++ and sure it was more lines of code but I understood it better.

I've also worked on a scheme interpreter in C++ that someone wrote in a game engine and it wasn't all that complicated.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse