Perl to Scheme, anyone?

[Ken Williams <address@hidden>]

Good afternoon,

I attended LL1 and appreciated very much getting the lowdown on so
much good information.  I am a long-time programmer who now uses Perl
every day.  It's an extremely useful tool that enables me to get my
job done.  And there are plenty of innovative ways to use Perl that
I'm still discovering, even after almost 10 years of programming in
it.  On the other hand, some of the code that I have to maintain is
downright ugly (I didn't write it ;-).  A language with fewer ways to
"do it", such as Python or Scheme, would make for more maintainable
code.

I've always had a strong interest in the academic languages based on
firm theoretical foundations, particularly those with a sound type
system--such as Standard ML and Haskell--and even those with an
unsound system, such as Russell.  But I hadn't really looked in depth
at Scheme.

I came away particularly impressed by the power and elegance of
Scheme--particularly the hygienic macros that were illustrated in
Shriram's FSM example, and the use continuations.  Since LL1, I'm
starting to read some of the numerous PLT papers, and it appears that
the "soft typing" of PLT Scheme and the extensions to make it possible
to actually program web servers take it out of the realm of
"impractical academic languages" and into the practical realm.

It remains to be seen whether there are enough modules already written
to make it possible for me to use Scheme instead of Perl for some of
my projects (or just parts of my projects), but I'm planning to give
it a try.

So here's one programmer who really appreciates the work done on both
of this divide we're trying to bridge.  Thanks to all.

++ Ken Williams
   Northern Light Technology