Programming Languages YET AGAIN (was Re: How to add reports into Gnucash)

[Jo]

Op 23 aug 2009, om 06:47 heeft hendrik at topoi.pooq.com het volgende  
geschreven:

> On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 04:44:12PM -0400, Robert Heller wrote:
>> At Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:58:12 -0700 (PDT) "David T." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com 
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> Don--
>>> Thank you for this information. If I *really* wanted to learn how  
>>> to program, I probably would have been a Comp Sci major in  
>>> college. As it is, what I *really* want is to have a report that  
>>> allows me to see monthly cash flow for a series of months.  
>>> Unfortunately, I will have to hope that someone else with more  
>>> ability, time, and determination will work out how to realize this  
>>> report for me.
>>
>> Scheme is a LISP variant.  Even for CS Majors / Grad Students LISP  
>> can
>> be a 'tough' language.  One either 'gets it' or one does not: "There
>> are 10 kinds of people: Lispers and everyone else" :-) (There are two
>> computer programmer jokes there.)
>
> What makes Lisp tough is trying to learn it with a mindset derived  
> from
> completely different kinds of languages.  Kind of like trying to learn
> Japanese while insisting on using English grammar on it.
What makes Scheme less tough to learn is "The Scheme program  
language"  book by R. Kent Dybvig's. Free available here: http://www.scheme.com/tspl2d/
Furthermore instead of records or structures, think of the data  
processed as sets, that is the concept of collections, and the  
operators target all members of a set.
A few hours spent on this book, icw Scheme interpreter, will show you  
the elegance (yes, my personal valuation) of this language type.
Oh yeah, this is were you find DrScheme, an invaluable Scheme editor, http://www.plt-scheme.org/

All the Best!
Johan