RICHER@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (Mark Richer) (06/10/86)
I have been asked to give advice regarding the appropriateness of using Scheme for a development effort in Intelligent Computer Assisted Instruction. Although this is partly a research effort also, a clear goal is testing and installing the software in high school classrooms. The hardware available to this project is Hewlett-Packward workstations. Admittedly I know little about Scheme. However, my initial reaction is that no advantages Scheme could provide over CommonLisp could offset the disadvantages of using a language without a large user base for the purposes of software development and installation. CommonLisp promises to offer portability (of course there are still problems, e.g., graphics) and a large user community, and has other obvious advantages because of the general acceptance of Lisp in the U.S. AI community. I'd appreciate some feedback from people that are familiar with Scheme, particularly if you have used it for developing a large AI-based system. Can any argument be presented to justify the resources necessary to train people in Scheme and build and maintain a system in this UnCommonLispLike language? In other words, what is so special about Scheme compared to CommonLisp? Mark -------