I love LISPs. I confess: it’s partly visual. There’s just something very appealing about all the parentheses cascading their way down the buffer. It’s like programming with bubbles.

Scheme in particular is my favorite because it’s so clean and compact. I can’t say I’ve ever found any particularly practical use for it, personally, but it makes me happy just knowing it exists. No special insights either, since the functional techniques it encourages are part of the air I breath now, but it was nice to spend some time with an old friend.

Actually, that’s not true. One thing that’s notable is that the compiled version of this is an order of magnitude slower than every other implementation so far: 5 seconds vs. about 0.5 seconds. Any schemers out there who can shed light on what I’m doing wrong? I’m not using any special command line flags beyond --exe.

This was written for MzScheme 4.2.2.

#lang scheme ; Defining the players (define o 'O) (define x 'X) (define (other-player player) (case player ((X) o) ((O) x))) ; Setting up the board (define *starting-board* '((1 2 3) (4 5 6) (7 8 9))) (define (space-available? space board) (let ((member-space (lambda (row) (member space row)))) (ormap member-space board))) ; Moving -- returns a transformed board (define (move player space board) (letrec ((move-in-row (lambda (row) (cond ; if we reach the end, that's it [(null? row) '()] ; if we have found the space, take it [(eqv? space (first row)) (cons player (rest row))] ; if not, keep going [else (cons (first row) (move-in-row (rest row)))])))) (map move-in-row board))) (define (board->string board) (let* ([space->string (lambda (space) (cond [(number? space) (string-append "(" (number->string space) ")")] [(symbol? space) (string-append " " (symbol->string space) " ")] [else ""]))] [row->string (lambda (row) (string-append* (add-between (map space->string row) "|")))]) (string-append* (add-between (map row->string board) "

---+---+---

")))) (define (winner? board) (let ([all-eq? (lambda (lst) (foldl (lambda (x y) (if (eq? x y) x #f)) (first lst) (rest lst)))]) (findf (lambda (x) x) (list ; rows (all-eq? (first board)) (all-eq? (second board)) (all-eq? (third board)) ; columns (all-eq? (map first board)) (all-eq? (map second board)) (all-eq? (map third board)) ; diagonals (all-eq? (list (first (first board)) (second (second board)) (third (third board)))) (all-eq? (list (third (first board)) (second (second board)) (first (third board)))))))) (define (full? board) (not (findf number? (flatten board)))) (define (display-board board) (begin (newline) (display (board->string board)) (newline) (newline))) (define (play board player) (begin (display-board board) (let ((winning-player (winner? board))) (cond [winning-player (display (string-append (symbol->string winning-player) " Wins!

"))] [(full? board) (display "It's a Draw!

")] [else (begin (display (string-append "Select a square, " (symbol->string player) ": ")) (let ((answer (string->number (regexp-replace* #px"\\s*" (read-line) "")))) (if (and answer (space-available? answer board)) (play (move player answer board) (other-player player)) (play board player))))])))) (play *starting-board* x)