TITLE: Build the Bridge
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: January 20, 2017 11:38 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:

On
<A HREF="https://groups.google.com/d/msg/racket-users/O4vUaEPYez4/ULpZRt10BAAJ">
   the racket-users mailing list</A>
yesterday, Matthias Felleisen issued "a research challenge that
is common in the Racket world":

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 If you are here and you see the blueprints for paradise over
 there, don't just build paradise.  Also build the bridge
 from here to there. 
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is one of the things I love about Racket.  And I don't use
even 1% of the goodness that is Racket and its ecosystem.

Over the last couple of years, I have been migrating my
Programming Languages course from a Scheme subset of Racket to
Racket itself.  Sometimes, this is simply a matter of talking
about Racket, not Scheme.  Others, it means using some of the
data structures, functions, and tools Racket provides rather
than doing without or building our own.  Occasionally, this
shift requires changing something I do in class, because Racket
is fussier than Scheme in some regards.  That's usually a good
thing, because the change makes Racket a better language for
engineering big programs.  In general, though, the shift goes
smoothly.

Occasionally, the only challenge is a personal one.  For
example, I decided to use <TT>first</TT> and <TT>rest</TT>
this semester when working with lists, instead of <TT>car</TT>
and <TT>cdr</TT>.  This should make some students' lives better.
Learning a new language and a new style and new IDE all at once
can be tough for students with only a couple of semesters'
programming experience, and using words that mean what they say
eliminates one unnecessary barrier.  But, as I
<A HREF="http://twitter.com/wallingf/status/821448188141989889">
   tweeted</A>,
I don't feel whole or entirely clean when I do so.  As my
college humanities prof taught me through Greek tragedies, old
habits die hard, if at all.

One of my goals for the course this semester is to have the
course serve as a better introduction to Racket for students
who might be inclined to take advantage of its utility and
power in later courses, or who simply want to enjoy working in
a beautiful language.  I always seem to have a few who do, but
it might be nice if even more left the course thinking of
Racket as a real alternative for their project work.  We'll
see how it goes.
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