13:08 <Guest6> hello everyone, i was considering seriously starting with a scheme for some projects and have doubts about which implementation, i read TPL and tried some schemes, but was wondering about racket

13:09 <Guest6> is it ok to use or is it still considered a toy language? can it be used for real applications?

13:09 <bremner> Guest6: of course _we_ think it's usable for real applications

13:09 <bremner> Guest6: you might need to define what you mean to get more information than that

13:11 <Guest6> bremner i just rememebr a similar conversation few months ago with some people that suggested why don't you use soemthing more industry robust such as common lisp

13:11 <Guest6> so i was wondering is racket actually used for real world projects?

13:11 <Guest6> also one thing i remember it seemed a bit complicated with racket was debugging, never got able to debug especially recursive functions

13:12 <Guest6> the other doubt is about interactivity, is it interactive let's say like common lisp where you can comfortably use a REPL-driven programming approach

13:12 <Guest6> sorry i realize these are multiple questions

13:13 <bremner> I would say racket is less REPL driven than common lisp. There are good reasons for this, but if that is a dealbreaker for you...

13:13 <bremner> debugging tail recursive functions can be a bit tricky, but not impossible.

13:14 <Guest6> how do you do that?

13:14 <bremner> step through execution?

13:14 <bremner> (in the debugger)

13:15 <Guest6> ohh ok ok

13:15 <bremner> as far as "real world projects", I work on research compilers, so I can't really help there. I would say both common lisp and all scheme dialects put together are basically noise at the bottom of the chart compared to JavaScript and Python

13:15 <Guest6> bremner sure

13:15 <Guest6> that is a fact of course

13:16 <bremner> I mean, for me research is as real world as most startups, but I think most people think differently

13:16 <Guest6> bremner sounds reasonable

13:16 <Guest6> bremner maybe you could help also with something else, i wasn't able to statically compile a program using graphical libraries last year

13:17 <Guest6> let me see if i can get my hands on it again

13:17 <bremner> That's not something I know about, sorry. I'd post to the discourse instance

13:17 <Guest6> bremner what research are you doing ?

13:17 <Guest6> what is discourse?

13:17 <bremner> https://racket.discourse.group/

13:18 <bremner> you can use it via email after signing up, if that's your preference

13:18 <bremner> I use racket in researching modelling languages for mathematical optimization (operations research)

13:19 <ski> (btw, it could probably help to be also in #scheme. perhaps also #lispcafe,#lisp)

13:20 <bremner> #cl-school is good if learning common lisp. The famous common lisp "attitude" is almost entirely absent :)

13:22 <Guest6> danke to all of you

13:22 <bremner> good luck

13:23 <Guest6> bremner so you write DSLs for operations research?

13:23 <ski> Guest6 : of course, it's easier to do that, if you have a proper (standalone) IRC client, rather than a webchat

13:23 <bremner> Guest6: something like that

13:23 <ski> (not that there's anything wrong with webchats .. just a bit less featureful and convenient)

13:24 <ski> hm, bremner, related to constraint programming ?

13:24 <bremner> ski: more to linear programming, so more numerics on the back end, less backtracking

13:25 <ski> mhm. simplex method and such things, i guess

13:26 <bremner> yeah, branch and bound and so on

13:26 <bremner> lots of cool stuff going on in constraint programming, afaict