[r6rs-discuss] Implementors' intentions concerning R6RS

From: Abdulaziz Ghuloum <aghuloum>
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:52:27 -0400

On Oct 27, 2007, at 10:32 AM, Jon Wilson wrote:

> R. Kent Dybvig wrote:
>> While it would be great if every implementation were to adopt
>> R6RS, that
>> was never a possibility given the small number that fully adopted
>> R5RS.

To put it another way, if an implementor never planned on
ever adding a full numeric tower, hygienic macros, call/cc,
dynamic-wind, multiple values, etc etc to his Scheme
implementation (call it a pre-R4RS era Scheme), then it's
only expected that such implementor is not going to adopt
R6RS. As a Schemer, I don't care about such implementation
and its implementor's opinion about R6RS.
It's simply irrelevant.

> Then why bother writing and ratifying R6RS?

Because there are people out there who apparently do care
about the stuff that's in R6RS. Again, if the implementor
of your legacy Scheme implementation of choice never cared
about R5RS, then sorry, but that does not mean that we all
have to suffer the consequences. Those who bothered writing
and ratifying R6RS care about seeing it happen, and it is
sickening how their actions and motives have to be
challenged at every occasion.

> As I understood things, there were two goals for R6RS:
>
> * Fixing a number of minor issues and ill-defined things in R5RS
> * Increasing the cross-implementation portability of Scheme code

Site your sources. The first page of the ratified R6RS
standard document lists a different set.

And how do you propose that "increasing cross-implementation
portability of Scheme code" is going to be achieved if your
implementor rejects anything that goes beyond their current
set of favorite R[345]RS picks?

R6RS intends to "allow programmers to create and distribute
substantial program and libraries (e.g. SRFIs) that run
without modification in a variety of Scheme implementations".
The "Scheme implementations" are those that adopt R6RS of
course. Now whether this will be achieved is yet to be seen,
but I can see it taking shape already (see SRFI-41 and try
loading the R5RS code in your favorite Scheme implementation).

> Since the standard was such that very few implementors were going to
> bother with it

Seriously, do you think that the opinion of some of the
implementors whose implementations have 0% user base have
any weight as far as how everybody else should go about
doing business?

> ... the standard had already failed its most important goal!
> ...
> ... A standard which is largely unimplemented is a useless
> standard ...

You forgot to mention putting your tin-foil hat on.

Aziz,,,
Received on Sat Oct 27 2007 - 12:52:27 UTC