On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 4:15 PM, Eric Parent <eric@eparent.info> wrote:
Hi all,

I'm fairly new to this mailing list and Scheme / Lisp as well.

I come from a Python background and must admit the features present in Python that are coming from the Lisp world make me feel comfortable in my new language.

I am planning on using Scheme as my default language for some projects of mine and I am wondering what is in the ecosystem of libraries and packages that would allow me to get some additions to the core feature quickly.

There is "quicklisp" for Common Lisp packages and libraries. It seems to be somewhat similar to "pip" and "easy_install" in Python. Is there something equivalent that I could make use of with Gambit Scheme ? I was told that Chicken Scheme has a lot of libraries and packages to help deal with the day-to-day tasks a developer might run into. I believe this is specific to Chicken Scheme, not Gambit. Am I right ?

Some possible tasks I may have to deal with :
- regex
- directories and files navigation, creation, renaming, etc.
- web server
- numerical computation (linear algebra, arrays, matrices, vectors, etc.)
- symbolic computation
- html generation / templating
- database interaction

Any hint or advice would be appreciated.



Hi Eric,

I'm trying to work on that problem with the project http://schemespheres.org
It is sort of Quicklisp for Gambit, with multiplatform support. It is not "complete" in the sense that some important parts are missing, but the upcoming version brings full support for Linux/OSX/iOS/Android. This version is currently beta (the development branch of the github projects).
I will work soon also integrating or developing most of the things you mention, although I've been more focused on the general aspects of integrating several libraries/modules and multiplatform support. Most notably, it's lacking database interaction and a web server, but of course it's planned in the future. Most of those things can be found as independent project, and my intention is to merge some of them in the project (with the due credit and licenses). Some times this is straightforward and some times it isn't, and that's one of the reasons of the project. Spheres are fully compatible with Gambit, so you don't have to worry about getting locked into the platform.

Hope it helps, and I hope the project grows to better provide that what you need.

Álvaro