Re: [dev] Interesting post about X11

On Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:00:44 +0200
Alexander Teinum <ateinum_AT_gmail.com> wrote:

> > Use Scheme.  See Scheme 48 <http://s48.org/> for a nice, simple
> > implementation to start hacking on.

> This thread is about a replacement for X, but we’re also discussing
> development of “regular” applications. What exactly would you
> recommend Scheme for?

Scheme *should* be used for almost everything -- bootloaders, OS
kernels, hardware drivers, tiny user utilities (like (Plan 9) ls and
mc; Unix ls no longer qualifies as a tiny utility, and should not be
written at all), long-running servers, etc. -- everything but x86 boot
sectors should be written in Scheme.

Unfortunately, the readily available Scheme systems are unsuited for
most of those tasks. At the moment, Scheme *can* be used for
scripting and moderately large user applications (roughly, any daemon
with a built-in or otherwise firmly attached GUI -- think mail UAs and
multi-file editors for common examples).

For low-level programming (kernels and drivers), you would need a
Scheme compiler with support for compile-time and explicitly specified
run-time memory allocation, as well as good type inference and support
for explicitly specified physical types. For small utilities, you
would need a Scheme implementation with a small run-time library.
Long-running servers would benefit from the same compiler capabilities
that low-level programming requires, but you can usually do without
them.

Robert Ransom