[r6rs-discuss] Implementors' intentions concerning R6RS

From: Thomas Lord <lord>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 19:03:10 -0700

Elf wrote:
> i was not aware that 'a variety of scheme implemementations' meant 'my
> implementation and two others, and to hell with what the rest of you think'.
> at what point does implementor and developer opinion matter? at what point
> are we part of the entire Scheme community? apparently we're not right now.
>

I think that that's exaggerated.

The small number of implementations taking R6 seriously (and
I would include Larceny!) are, also, the most actively maintained
and furthered, fairly mature and serious implementations going.

SCM and Guile are close but development on them doesn't seem
quite so active. Chicken is close but it is only at the stage of showing
signs that it might mature nicely -- it isn't as far along as these other
implementations. There's more "close but not quite" comparisons
all down the line.

So, two things:

It's not so ridiculous to let those voices carry a lot of weight.

Once again, the net effect (if all goes well) is that there will various
approximations of R6 out there, and (if all goes well) libraries that
are portable-in-fact will be developed, and (if all goes well) it won't
be hard to adjust those libraries in response to further development.

So, what's to complain about?

Well, there's *words*. And it's legit to beef about how people use
the noun Scheme in various quasi-official and officially-official documents.

But, it seems to me that the R6 supporters are showing lots of evidence
of being very forthcoming with the qualifier that "a lot of people don't
like
this standard and the next one will have to be better." So, there
isn't left
even anything much about the *words* to fight over.

(Perhaps "growing a language" inevitably involves "growing pains".)


-t
Received on Fri Oct 26 2007 - 22:03:10 UTC