Newbie questions

[Robert Graham Merkel]

Marcel Felgentraeger writes:
 > Hi everybody.
<snipping the other questions because there are others better
qualified to answers>

 > And last but not least: how can I learn scheme (I hope that the right name)? I
 > am quite interested in writing scripts for the reports but I have only a very
 > minimal programming background. The documentations I have found so far were all
 > online, which is quite inconvienent when living in Germany. Maybe someone can
 > point me to a site where I can download the documentation or recommend a good
 > book.

Check out http://www.schemers.org, and their textbook
recommendations.  

"The Scheme Programming Language" is a good reference book, which I
use regularly. 

"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", usually
abbreviated to SICP, is also highly recommended by many here, though I
have not read it myself.

You can download the "official unofficial" standards from 
http://www.schemers.org/Documents/Standards.  Believe it or not, these
are actually quite readable and useful.

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Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk@mira.net

"We are excited and optimistic about its usage going 
forward and, yes, we can teach penguins the military 
close-order drill", Mark Norton, US Department of Defense. 
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