The TeachScheme! Project Notes on Scheme These are some questions we commonly encounter from teachers and parents. If you need additional information, please contact us by email at the address plt-outreach@cs.rice.edu - Is Scheme a ``real'' programming language? Scheme supports most of the standard real-world programming protocols: ActiveX, COM, ODBC, SMTP, POP, NNTP, HTTP, IMAP, XML, and so on. Scheme programmers use these protocols daily to develop real programs that see worldwide use. Several companies make their living out of selling Scheme products. Does that count as ``real''? But how about jobs? I don't see job advertisements for Scheme in our local papers. Does anyone actually use it? That's because many Scheme jobs are hired through networking or are listed by other names (well-trained Scheme programmers are ready almost immediately for jobs that use Erlang, Dylan, Common Lisp, and with a little more preparation, Smalltalk and Java). Scheme does see active use at numerous places including Intel, Motorola, Silicon Graphics, Microsoft and Disney's animation studios. Related languages are used for diverse real-world uses ranging from building popular graphical games to controlling international telecommunications networks. In any case, a discussion of jobs is irrelevant because industrial practice should have virtually no bearing on what we teach in the
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