Re: Patch (Re: [Texmacs-dev] Once again: automatic quoting)

[Henri Lesourd]

> My impression: the TeXmacs code and documentation has improved greatly
> since I last tried to hack something.
Yes, I have the same feeling.

> However - Scheme still is one of
> the most uncomfortable languages that I've worked on. No wonder TeXmacs
> has such a little group of active contributors. :-(
In this respect too, I (unfortunately) have the
same feeling. On the other hand, programming languages
are more or less the same, so it should be possible
to do things for improving the readability of Scheme
code (for example more macros for usual programming
constructs like (foreach), (while), etc.). With this,
plus a better documentation, it should be possible
to define a simpler style for usual programming
in TeXmacs/Scheme, and thus make the learning
curve easier, somehow.

More precisely, in effect, some things are really
nerdic in Scheme (the most obvious being the crap
non-syntax with lots of parentheses), but the usual
way to overcome these problems in Lisp dialects is
to write macros that allow you to completely reshape
the language itself : thus perhaps the problem doesnt
completely disappears, but on the other hand, the
programming language becomes powerful in a way that
can be found nowhere else.

But perhaps I don't look exactly at the right
place : could you elaborate more on why, precisely
you feel that Scheme is one of the more uncomfortable
languages for you ?

Best, Henri