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>Once you learn Scheme, well now you've learned Scheme. There is something really joyful in learning a new language and then implementing a well-known protocol
by simpaticoder 1y ago
>Once you learn Scheme, well now you've learned Scheme.
There is something really joyful in learning a new language and then implementing a well-known protocol, like HTTP, in that language. You can pick either the agent or server side, and check your work with other well-known agents and servers. In my experience this tends to happen when students like the language they've just learned, regardless of the direction their given by staff. In fact, I'd almost consider it definitional of what it means to like a language - that you'd consider implementing a well-known protocol in it in your free time.
- Izikiel43 1y ago> There is something really joyful in learning a new language and then implementing a well-known protocol, like HTTP, in that language. That's probably the minority of students though
- Karrot_Kream 1y agoMaybe this is due to my interests (I specialized and published in distributed systems) but it's always been the opposite for me. Implementing HTTP/1.0 or IRC clients is one of my favorite ways to learn a new language (albeit it's a bit heavy on the IO which can be unfair to functional languages that model effects.) My interest in network software is that I can standup the software and have it participate in the network immediately. It's the application that leads me to appreciate the language not the other way around. My interests in theorem proving and program verification came from debugging heisenbugs in the wild and wasn't motivated by the algorithmic complexity or mathematic sympathy. But I dabbled in PLT in my grad days and have no doubt that there are folks who have your mindset as well.