(fifth RacketCon): Matthias Felleisen — The Racket Manifesto

The creation of a programming language calls for guiding principles that point its developers to goals. This talk will spell out the three basic principles behind the 20-year development of Racket. First, programming is about stating and solving problems, and this activity normally takes place in a context with its own language of discourse; good programmers ought to formulate this language as a programming language. Hence, Racket is a programming language for creating new programming languages. Second, by following this language-oriented approach to programming, systems become multi-lingual collections of interconnected components. Each language and component must be able to protect its specific invariants. In support, Racket offers protection mechanisms to implement a full language spectrum, from C-level bit manipulation to soundly typed extensions. Third, because Racket considers programming as problem solving in the correct language, Racket also turns extra-linguistic mechanisms into linguistic constructs, especially mechanisms for managing resources and projects. This talk will explain these principles and how Racket lives up to them, present the evaluation framework behind the design process, and conclude with a sketch of Racket’s imperfections and opportunities for future improvements.

Matthias Felleisen is the Chief Philosopher and Shepherd (CPS) of PLT Design, Inc. As such he is responsible for thinking deep thoughts about Racket, pronouncing his insights in obscure emails to the mailing list, and herding cats while increasing their numbers. He has been around since forever and considers this presentation his half-time show.

[MarcTelesha]

Great video format. The audio is nice, the small picture frame of the speaker and the notes all in one is GREAT. Tons of work and I appreciate it.