Re: Newbie and Kawa

[Charles Turner <chturne at gmail dot com>]

On 01/12/11 22:34, John Smith wrote
> As someone new to both Kawa and Scheme, I'd be grateful to know if Kawa is chiefly documented in terms of behaviours which are particular to Kawa's Java relationship

Not chiefly, but IMO the manual is more of a reference at the moment. 
Which I'd guess is what people with a Scheme background want. (It's a 
difficult problem finding the right balance between terse documentation, 
and overly verbose documentation, and I think Per has done a good job!)

> I was pretty excited by Kawa when I found it - leverage Java libs but in a Scheme milieu - but I'd be grateful for any advice about the suitability of Kawa for Scheme newbies.

That depends what your other experiences are in my opinion.

I should make it clear that Racket is no longer a Scheme system. There 
are some fundamental differences these days in the default Racket 
language (hence the name change from PLT Scheme to Racket), you can 
chose Scheme languages within Racket (like r5rs), but they're not 
enabled by default, so be careful about that.

Racket's infrastructure (in particular DrRacket) has been tailored to 
beginners, it's used a lot in schools/colleges/universities getting a 
lot of feedback from both students and teachers. How to Design Programs 
is a good book to start with, and it's tightly integrated with DrRacket.

If you plan on using another Scheme book, like Structure and 
Interpretation of Computer Programs, or some the resources listed on 
Kawa's homepage, then Kawa is good choice, since the Scheme material is 
(hopefully) being carefully explained in the text.

I hope I don't give off the impression that Kawa isn't suitable for 
beginners, everyone I've come across on this list has been happy to help 
me with my beginner questions. It's a very subjective topic, and I hope 
I've managed to give a fair overview of the two systems for you to make 
your decision!

Charlie.