John Carmack working on Scheme as a VR scripting language

Re:John Carmack working on Scheme as a VR scripting language by brlewis on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @09:51AM (#9811758)

I'm currently using Java and Javascript for work. Previously I used Scheme. I do find that scanning is important in Java and JavaScript because often you don't need to read a whole section, just a piece. Back when I worked with Scheme, if I didn't need to read a whole section, generally the part I needed to know was right at the beginning. I think all Lisp dialects work this way.

The worst example is immediate function application in JavaScript. You get to the end and all of a sudden the }(); tells you everything you've just read is a different context than you thought it was. In Scheme (and probably most Lisps) you'd recognize immediate function application at the beginning as soon as you saw ((.

I don't know how people get really good at JavaScript without learning Scheme first.

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Re:John Carmack working on Scheme as a VR scripting language by ahoge on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @10:01AM (#9811824)

> You get to the end and all of a sudden the }();

With most code conventions, you wrap immediately invoked function expressions (IIFEs) in parens:

  var foo = (function () {
    ...
  }());

The only purpose of those extra parens is to act as marker.

Well, with block scope (`let` & `const`), IIFEs aren't really needed anymore.

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