Kawa 1.9.0 Released

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:25:33 GMT

Per Bothner on the Kawa mailing list: I've released Kawa 1.9.0, and updated the web pages. Please try the .tar.gz and/or .jar and let me know of any problems. Here is the list of recent (and not-so-recent) changes. http://www.gnu.org/software/kawa/news.html

For people who are not familiar with it, Kawa is language development framework for the JVM together with an implementation of the Scheme programming language and an implementation of the XQuery language. It compiles these languages into Java bytecodes.

It is in Kawa that I first saw the technique of compiling scripts from the interactive shell into Java bytecode and then load and execute them.

The Podcast You Can't Afford To Miss

Thu, 10 Nov 2005 13:37:04 GMT

There are two kinds of programmers: ones who have read SICP, and ones who haven't.

Those who have often smile in secret knowledge that they know better when they hear those who haven't going on and on about "object-orientation," "design patterns," "meta-programming," "closures," and "continuations" as if they are magic.

For those who haven't clicked on the link, SICP stands for Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman, an introduction to computer science textbook in use since 1981. Here's praise of this book from the guy who wrote the original Mozilla (aka Netscape Navigator):

Jamie Zawinski: If you don't know C++ and want to learn what this whole 'object oriented programming' thing is all about, there is one and only one book you should read first, and that is "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", by Abelson and Sussman.

Now the good news. Professor Abelson has made available, free under the creative commons license, a complete presentation of the course, given in 1986 for Hewlett-Packard employees.

Now the better news. The lectures, twenty downloads averaging 1.5GB each for a total of almost 22 hours, is also available as a podcast at this URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SICP. Thanks to Max Khesin.

Weiqi Gao's Observations - scheme tag

Kawa 1.9.0 Released

The Podcast You Can't Afford To Miss