Posted on May 16, 2019
I had to comply with my learning idiosyncrasies, so I created a new project collecting unofficial documentation for CHICKEN Scheme in gnu Texinfo format; the first revision of the first document, about CHICKEN internals, is out as HTML. The package includes a test suite to verify that the documented behaviours are actually true with the ecosystem of CHICKEN components I have installed.
The default CHICKEN documentation system, which revolves around the chicken-doc
program, is frustrating me: it is too cumbersome for me, even with gnu Emacs as pager (with all
its navigation and search facilities).
In the last 30 years (in which I confronted some high–level learning tasks) I tried to follow the learning patterns of other people, I really tried, but they just do not work; to actually learn something, I always have to go back to my way: rewriting the material with a logic organisation, visual appearance, navigation procedures that fit my neurological functions. Otherwise I can do nothing.
So… that package is my learning infrastructure for CHICKEN’s ecosystem. Now that it exists: I know where to place the bits I will learn today (maybe 5 minutes of work), and the bits I will learn next week (maybe 8 minutes of work), and the bits I will learn at the end of the month (maybe 2 minutes of work), and so on. A handful of minutes here and there to grow a mental model of how things work.
I envy a bit humans that do not have to hack their brain this way. Life is hard!