[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] Record layers are not orthogonal.

From: Sam TH <samth>
Date: Thu Nov 16 15:45:16 2006

On Thu, 2006-11-16 at 11:58 -0500, David Van Horn wrote:
> For example, a
> comprehensive list library is a good SRFI candidate. The community
> benefits by having a consistent, complete, and portable library.
> Should
> this be part of R6RS? No-- R6RS should give us the means for writing
> such a library, not the library itself.

I think this is a belief that is widely shared among members of this
list, which is unfortunate. Consider the languages developed since 1980
that are still in wide use (C++, Java, C#, Python, Tcl, Ruby, Perl, CL,
Haskell, SML, OCaml, etc). All of them (with the possible exception of
SML) provide extensive libraries. Now consider the major Scheme
implementations (I won't try to list them for fear of offending people).
I believe that all of them provide libraries on par with SRFI 1.

Are these facts coincidences? Of course not. Modern languages are more
than just a syntax and semantics, they are the standard library as well.
Scheme deserves a comprehensive library, not a minimal one.

Perhaps, for reasons of compromise between the editors, an extensive
list library (or other library) cannot be agreed on. However, a useful
standard library (covering records, lists, and many other things) should
be a goal of RnRS.

sam th
Received on Thu Nov 16 2006 - 15:46:32 UTC