[r6rs-discuss] operational or denotational semantics?

From: Robby Findler <robby.findler>
Date: Sun Feb 25 22:37:59 2007

Apologies. I certainly didn't mean to offend.

Robby

On 2/25/07, Thomas Lord <lord_at_emf.net> wrote:
> Robby Findler wrote:
> > I'm just saying two simple things, really:
> >
> > - Such a thing has never been achieved before (feel free to draw your
> > own conclusions as to why :).
>
> [where "such a thing" refers to having both a denotational and
> operational semantics with a consistency proof]
>
>
> We must not be talking about the same thing.
>
>
>
> >
> > - Please, if you think you can be the first, do jump in and go do it.
> > The current operational semantics is there only because we jumped in
> > and did it.
> >
> > As to the rest of your message, I doubt I'm the most qualified here to
> > answer you, but probably the best way to get the answers is for you to
> > study these things yourself.
> >
>
> I started that study sometime around 1983, although, to be sure,
> not concentrating on developing certain modes of personal expression
> that are valued in professional academia. I grew up not far from MIT.
> When my high school library discarded a copy of Milne & Strachey,
> I rescued it from the dump. Dana Scott, when I was an anonymous
> undergrad passing through his world with still-naive questions, turned
> me onto Martin-Lof. I enjoyed SICP, when it came out, though I
> regarded it as a fairly incremental improvement over an earlier introductory
> text by Wirth. I've implemented or worked on a fairly substantial number
> interpreters over the years. I cut my lisp teeth on Franz, and spent a
> kind of lisp-adolescence digging deep into early versions of GNU Emacs.
> I get a lot more of the quiet jokes in this field than you do -- sometimes
> even cracking a few of my own.
>
> Please refrain from speaking down to me, if we don't always quite
> understand one another.
>
> I'm not speaking from some naive intellectual curiosity. I'm
> speaking out because the current draft is, in my more-informed-than-
> you-seem-to-assume estimation, garbage -- but good garbage
> out of which there is still some chance of developing a nice little
> R6RS.
>
>
> -t
> ------
>
> "A classification such as the above might therefore
> make it possible for more Schemers to achieve greater
> happiness." -- Will Clinger
>
> -----
>
>
>
>
> > Good luck,
> > Robby
> >
>
>
Received on Sun Feb 25 2007 - 22:37:52 UTC