John Cowan wrote:
> Thomas Lord scripsit:
>
>
>> The addition of a few, parsimoniously chosen features
>> eliminates the need for almost everything that is new
>> in the R6 draft. Nearly *ALL* of the new hacks could
>> be done as SRFIs, if only R6 would add these few OPTIONAL
>> features:
>>
>
> Indeed, many R5RS features could likewise be removed in this fashion
> (though I think some of your cures are far worse than the diseases).
>
You ought to explain why. Frankly, I don't see it.
> However, this fails to appreciate the purpose of a _standard_.
> We standardize in order to improve communication.
Yes, fine. And my proposal (aside from describing a system that is very
usefully directly implemented with all optional features) ALSO creates
a wonderfully expressive language in which every new idea in the current
R6 draft can be precisely (and effectively) expressed. Thus, most of
the new ideas in R6 could be treated as SRFIs.
> There is no reason
> why people can't implement their own version of LIST-LENGTH (e.g.),
> but it appears in R5RS precisely so that there will not be a variety
> of inconsistent implementations under an even larger variety of names.
> There is nothing in any standard that requires an implementer to conform
> to it, and likewise for a program author, after all. If you want R5RS
> (or R4RS), you know where to find it
Your point of view is, apparently, that programming languages should be
defined by adding features and restrictions whenever convenient. May I
direct you to the nearest Java Community Process?
-t
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Received on Fri May 25 2007 - 16:16:07 UTC