[Jscheme-devel] Re: Scheme on the Web?

[Timothy H. <tim...@ma...>]

Hi Jerzy,

On Thursday, April 11, 2002, at 05:14 AM, Jerzy Karczmarczuk wrote:

> Just for curiosity.
>
> Anybody ever tried, or investigated the feasibility of making
> a MzScheme plugin for the Web navigators?
>
> Or, perhaps this has been tried and rejected for some reasons? Then
> don't read the rest.

   We've taken a step in that direction with jscheme.sourceforge.net
which is a Java-based scheme (similar to Kawa but interpreted).
We use it to teach non-Cosi majors how to write applets. Its much
easier to write Scheme applets than Java applets. Most recently,
we've used Jscheme to write Java Web Start applications. These
have full access to the latest JDK and are not limited by any of
the applet security restrictions.

  It would be possible to start from Jscheme and build a MzScheme
interpreter. Whats needed is
  * full continuations (we use Java's try/catch now, but it wouldn't be
    that difficult to modify the top level loop to handle continuations
    (Just replace the recursive non-tail calls with a stack). This is
     on our list of things to do. We do have full last call optimization
     implemented.
  * modules -- this too is something we'd like to add, but haven't
  * macros - we have common lisp style macros and also support
     hygenic macros (but its currently rather slow).
  * syntax -- Jscheme supports quasi-lists which conflicts a little
    with MzSchemes use of ()[]{}, but that could be handled by
    runtime switches on the readers....
Anyway, since this post is not really about MzScheme I've sent
it off-list.

Sincerely,
---Tim Hickey


>
>
> There might be some related work in the grey zone of Guile gurus, and
> - as far as I remember - the OpenScheme (Erian Concept - people from
> Nice) commercial implementation proposed a Netscape/IE plugin, but=20
> somehow
> I dismissed all that, probably because of weak graphical support...
>
> There was once upon a time the CURL project, but they went into money
> making and the first idea of having a Scheme-based super-applet on a
> navigator somehow went into oblivion.
>
> There was (probably) some work based on the Java VM, and Kawa of Per
> Bothner: Scheme  compiled to Java bytecodes, so in principle an =
ordinary
> applet could be used. But I don't like Frankensteinic products,

You mean that the combination of two languages (in Kawa and Jscheme=20
and ...)
is unsettling?

> although
> Kawa seems to be a serious and nice initiative.
>
>
>
> **
>
> Anyway, another PLT family member, say Uncle NetScheme would be a =
great=20
> idea,
> if realized *well*, i.e.,
>
> =3D multiplatform,
> =3D with full graphical support (canvases and graphical objects, *and*=20=

> interfacing
>   widgets). An alternative to MrEd?
> =3D with all the basic DOM support offered by the host, i.e., the=20
> possibility
>   to interact with the document and with the navigator itself =E0 la=20=

> JavaScript.
> =3D with the appropriate security level.
> =3D with the possibility to inline small programs. (I believe Tclets =
can=20
> do
>   that as well)
> =3D without memory management bugs...
>
> Any comments? Any takers?
> (If somebody does this inpired by my posting, I demand 4.9%, paid in=20=

> beer).
>
>
>
>
> Jerzy Karczmarczuk
> Caen, France