[Jscheme-user] RE: [plt-scheme] just starting, comming from j2ee

[Ken A. <kan...@bb...>]

Dispite what SISC says about JScheme.  JScheme is currently faster than SISC.  You can also write servlets in scheme.  Here's an introduction to computers course 
http://popper.cs-i.brandeis.edu:8080/cs2a04/index.html using JScheme servlets.

At 02:00 PM 11/2/2004 -0500, Dominique Boucher wrote:
>  For list-related administrative tasks:
>  http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
>
>Hi Jaime,
>
>> I found this page
>> (http://sisc.sourceforge.net/comparison.php) that compares 
>> Kawa, JScheme, Bigloo and SISC, and I went to their web sites 
>> to read, but I havent test myself anything (I need to learn 
>> Scheme first, I guess :)
>
>Don't base your decision on benchmarks like those. Choose 
>a Scheme system that suits your needs (libraries, features, 
>compliance to a standard, etc.). Unless you have to implement
>very CPU-intensive algorithms, almost all Scheme implementations
>will do, in terms of performance (at least in the context of web 
>applications). Even interpreted systems will do well.
>
>> What I didn't like from Kawa is that you have to compile and 
>> deploy your servlets like regular java servlets, and you 
>> don't have a REPL so you loose some of Scheme's good 
>> qualities. (Is that so in your experience? )
>
>First, you are not required to compile your Scheme code. You
>can simply load all your Scheme files at startup time, and the
>performance will not suffer that much. 
>
>Also, Kawa does provide a REPL. I use it all the time to test my
>code. But like many other Scheme systems, it does not let you 
>inspect local stack frames when an error occur (like in Gambit-C). 
>You're dumped to the top level.
>
>> There are also some restrictions about continuations, tail 
>> recursion, etc but at this point I don't know it those will 
>> matter at all for my project. 
>
>In my case, I missed tail calls only once in the last year or so.
>But YMMV. Depends on you problem domain. 
>
>> Same for the slower JScheme and the faster Bigloo.
>
>Also, last time I checked, Bigloo required the -noverify flag to
>be passed to the JVM. You don't want this in a production 
>environment like Bea Weblogic or IBM WebSphere...!
>
>> SISC is the more flexible but then, I don't know, would it be 
>> possible to build a highly scalable site on top of an 
>> interpreter made in java? 
>
>I don't have a lot of experience with SISC. I can't comment.
>
>> I would really appreciate if you tell me a little about your 
>> experience with Kawa.
>
>I use Kawa Scheme at work for the development of a DSL 
>(domain-specific language) for developing industrial-strength 
>speech (VoiceXML) applications for use by large call-centers, as well as 
>some other speech-related technologies. (The speech applications
>are web-based.) The DSL is itself a S-expression-based language, 
>with embedded Scheme code fragments/scripts (instead of 
>the usual XML/JavaScript pair). 
>
>(Last year, one of our applications served about 70,000 calls in 
>three weeks on 48 phone lines. This may not seem much for a 
>web application, but for a speech application, it is. Also, the 
>Java/Scheme application server was by far the most stable part of the 
>whole solution.)
>
>I chose Kawa because most of our clients work in J2EE 
>environments and for its speed. I also looked at Bigloo, but
>didn't like its Java-Scheme interface.
>
>Kawa itself is quite stable. When you find a bug, Per Bothner 
>(the author of Kawa) is very responsive and usually fixes
>the bug in a matter of hours. 
>
>Since I must interface my Scheme code with a lot of Java code 
>(written by me or my colleagues), I have to use the Eclipse 
>environment. But Scheme is not supported in Eclipse, and all
>Scheme plugins available were of poor quality.  So I wrote my  
>Scheme editor plug-in for Eclipse: http://schemeway.sourceforge.net.
>It is quite stable now (I will release the latest version this evening)
>and is a fairly decent editor, with lots of customizations. 
>
>> I was wondering if it would be to much of an "impedance gap" 
>> between the java libraries (say, jdbc,
>> jndi) and Scheme as a language. Can you really "think in 
>> Scheme" having to use libraries that weren't designed for that?
>
>Kawa does a nice job of interfacing Scheme and Java. With the
>help of a few macros, one can turn a Java API into a new mini-language
>embedded inside Scheme. But whatever Scheme system you choose,
>you'll have to interface with existing libraries (usually in C). You will
>face the same "impedance gap". Macros are the key, here.
>
>And how do you defined "think in Scheme"? For me,  this means:
> - dynamic typing (tagged values)
> - S-expressions and the list data-type
> - closures with indefinite extent
> - higher-order functions
> - powerful macros for building syntactic abstractions
> - tail-call optimization
> - continuations
>Most of my problems do not require the last two. But all others
>are very important to me. For this reason, I tend to minimize the interface
>between Java libraries and my own Scheme code. 
>
>I think the real question is: why are you interested by Scheme? 
>If it's the concept of continuation-based servers, then take a 
>closer look at SISC and PLT-Scheme. IMHO, this could 
>be the future of web server technologies (even if there are
>a number of challenges that still need be addressed, like Matthias
>pointed out in another message).
>
>
>Regards,
>
>Dominique Boucher
>Lead Developer
>Nu Echo Inc.
>www.nuecho.com