undefined | Better HN

0 pointsravi-delia4y ago0 comments

SCIP uses an amount of high-level functions that are frankly ridiculous outside of a very functional language. Hell, maybe even outside of a Lisp-1. That's not to say that Scheme is the best language (probably not in my top 5), but there are better languages than javascript for SCIP, and better programming methods than SCIP for javascript.

0 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

hajile4y ago· 1 in thread

Which remotely popular language would be a better choice?

The only ones that leap to mind are the ML languages.

ravi-deliaOP4y ago

I guess that's the rub, I'm not sure any of them are. Certainly Javascript has stronger support for functional programming than Python. Maybe Ruby? Even Haskell would get pretty much unreadable extremely quickly, though pattern matching would make some parts way easier.

I'm not coming at this from a lisp fanboy perspective (though I am one), it's just kinda the reality of SICP's style of programming. Even PAIP translates extremely well to Python, but SICP encourages a layering of abstractions that I can't picture reading without parenthesis keeping order of operations strict.

The best solution I can think of is having a pre-packaged setup for getting started with Scheme, a la Dr. Racket.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse