[clean-list] Re: Any scheduled release data for Clean 2.3?

[jerzy.karczmarczuk at info.unicaen.fr]

Richard O'Keefe: 

> On 7 Nov 2008, at 8:04 pm, <jerzy.karczmarczuk at info.unicaen.fr> wrote:
>> What about Java and C++? Not so interactive, and still quite popular.
> 
> Perhaps you haven't heard about BlueJ?
> http://www.bluej.org/about/what.html
> As far as the educational advantages of a REPL go,
> BlueJ means that Java _is_ interative.

Oh, I should have mentioned that... Yes, I know (but I don't use) BlueJ.
I know also the C/C++ interpreters with conversational facilities, Ch and
UnderC.
These languages thus *may be* used interactively, very true. However, this
is infrequent, according to several people I talked to. My point
was that it was *NOT* the interactivity, instant command execution, etc.,
that makes the popularity of these languages. I don't pretend to be
categorical, the REPL is important in education (that's why we've been
using mainly Scheme and more recently Python), but is this critical? I
don't think so. 

==
> The Haskell manual has gone through several editions,
> but each version has been complete, and well proof-read.
> The latest Clean documentation I have is missing a
> couple of chapters, and the sort-of-English is on
> occasion quite jarring. 

This, *again* is also a problem of community building. In Haskell plenty
of people write tutorials, e.g. on Monads (sometimes really awful and
useless, but occasionally reasonable...). Young Haskell amateurs collect
examples and comment them. All this is important. 

Clean is distributed with a nice collection of examples, I have learn quite
a lot from them. But all that is concentrated.
People don't know about Clean ! And the name is ambiguous. 

http://www.cleanchange.co.uk/store/index.php 

Of course, there is a Japanese site, there was a nice tutorial written by
a fascinating Brazilian girl (additionally: specialist in Aikido fights...)
and some other stuff. But not too much... Sorry for a personal plug-in,
but I presented twice on the PADL workshop some applications (procedural
textures, and musical sound generators); at least three persons told me
that (independently of the lousy quality of my talks...) they will learn
Clean, since it seems promising. So, again, I underline the importance of
a community. 

Best regards. 

Jerzy Karczmarczuk