

Scheme on the iPad - gnosis
http://web.mac.com/Jay_reynolds_freeman/My/Pixie_Scheme_III.html

======
hasenj
I feel that a lispy language on the ipad should not be text-based, but tree-
based: you create and manipulate the tree structure using the touch interface.

For example, you touch, and that creates a node.

    
    
       o
    

Then you can type something inside that node. Then you drag lines out of it,
and you create child nodes, and so on.

    
    
        o-------o
         \
          \
           o
    

The node doesn't have to be a circle, it could be a long rectangle with atoms
inside

    
    
       [  ____   ______    ______ ]
    

You can drag out an atom to turn it into another node

    
    
       [  _____   ______    ______ ]
            |
            |
            |
            |
       [ ___  ___ ]

~~~
vito
Something like this?: [http://lispgamesdev.blogspot.com/2010/12/iosketch-
progress-r...](http://lispgamesdev.blogspot.com/2010/12/iosketch-progress-
report.html)

------
mhansen
I seem to remember other programming languages (and programs that run code not
included with the application) being banned on the app store. Did something
change? Or are you compiling down to JavaScript to get around the limits?

~~~
wahnfrieden
They dropped those rules. I hope Scratch gets released now because of it.

~~~
tzs
They dropped the rule against using interpreters, and the rule against having
your original code be in other than C, Objective-C, C++, or Javascript.

However, I don't think they dropped the rule against being able to download
code. If this thing lets you load files from the net that are interpreted as
Scheme programs, it could be in violation of that rule.

~~~
wahnfrieden
Ah, thanks for the clarification - that's too bad.

------
bhickey
If you want to use scheme on any platform with JavaScript, check out WeScheme
[<http://www.wescheme.org>]

The server uses the Java AppEngine API. Yes, we did run into issues with
requests exceeding the AppEngine timeout. At one point (this may still be
true) we were able to compile our compiler on AppEngine. Which brings us to
Moby-Scheme, the heart of WeScheme! It's a self-hosting (Scheme -> JavaScript)
compiler. [<https://github.com/dyoo/moby-scheme>]

WeScheme was written in support of BootStrap
[<http://www.bootstrapworld.org/>] an educational initiative aimed at using
computer science as a vehicle for teaching algebra to middle-school students.

There is a semi-working structured editor for WeScheme that is a pile of
jQuery hooking interactions with content-editable. In retrospect we should
have just gone for HTML5. There's also the inkling of a scratch-like interface
which is works by swapping in a new style sheet. I'm afraid I can't find the
latest version, in my younger days I was a bit sloppy about version control.
An older version is available at <http://ch4n.org/editor> Your mileage may
vary.

</shameless plug>

------
elviejo
I wast thinking that interface such as Scratch [1] for kids or BYOB[2] for
adultus would be so fun on the ipad.

Scratch is an MIT project based on squeak that allows kids to program by
dragging blocks in the screen.

And BYOB is an extension to scratch to use functional programming.

[1] <http://scratch.mit.edu/> [2] <http://byob.berkeley.edu/>

~~~
wahnfrieden
MIT submitted Scratch for iPad a while ago and was denied. Hopefully they
resubmit now that the rules have loosened.

~~~
elviejo
As a matter of fact they loosened the rules, as direct result of the efforts
of John Mcintosh to be able to run Scratch on the Ipad.

However his efforts although were enough to change apple policy, they weren't
successful enough to get Scratch to run on the ipad. :-(

Here is a quick summary of the story:
<http://www.mobilewikiserver.com/Scratch.html>
[http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/2010/12/john-mcintosh-
at...](http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/2010/12/john-mcintosh-at-smalltalk-
solutions-11/)

