Re: Scheme (was Re: Limitations of Inform and TADS?)


Mon, 6 Nov 1995 01:50:15 -0500

jweinste@alcor.usc.edu (Jacob Solomon Weinstein) writes:
> Could I bother somebody to tell me a little bit about Scheme and why it
> would be better for writing IF games than other languages? As a
> non-computer-programmer, I know about languages like LISP and Pascal, but
> I've never heard of Scheme. (I've heard of Prolog, but I don't know
> anything about it.)

Scheme is a LISP variant. It's LISP with a lot of the rough edges
removed; better type system, etc.

Prolog is a very weird language; instead of executing statements, it
kind of fiddles around with logical rules, trying to make conclusions.
I tend to think it's not a language, but a database system with a
powerful data-comparison engine. But that's not to say you couldn't
write IF with it.

I'm actually partial to SML, a language which might be described as a
distant descendant of LISP with the nicest type system I've ever seen.
Plus, the functions it generates are compiled into machine code, so
it's faster than most LISP derivatives. But I've only ever seen it
implemented for UNIX boxes.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."