On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, Thomas Guettler wrote: > Hi all! > > I want to learn lisp or scheme, too. I have read the faqs at > www.faqs.org, and I am still not convinced which language I should > start to learn. Scheme is much smaller, Common Lisp has more > libraries.... > > What I want to do: I want to make some electronic music. I am dreaming > of accessing the ALSA-sequencer via lisp. A song could be a list of > parts, and a part a list of notes... > > Can some help me choosing a language (lisp/scheme). > Book-recommendations are welcome! >
A few years ago I was working on an experimental expert system project using an expert system shell that was written in LISP. All of the actions that happened when a rule fired were LISP functions. It was great and I loved programming in that language. I would probably recommend Scheme as I think it is an improvement to LISP in some ways, most dealing with the structure of the language. The problem with Scheme is that there haven't been practical interpreter/compilers for it, unlike LISP which has more mature tools for doing practical programming. By "practical" I mean having useful libraries for doing real work, such as Python or Perl have. Scheme seems to be a little more academic and frankly, functional computer lanuguages (like Scheme or LISP) are not in vogue right now. I think object oriented languages are the "thing" right now, so Java and C++ seem to be very popular. But I must admit it has probably been a couple of years since I searched around for a good Scheme interpreter/compiler. I was hoping that Guile would become that and maybe it has. I suppose I'll have to check back with that project and see where its at. In terms of a book recommendation, one of the classics (IMHO) of computer science uses Scheme as its example language. It is "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". Great book. You realize, I hope, that you will have to use Emacs if you intend to program in LISP or Scheme. It is simply the only editor that will do :).
