elf asked:
> do those defending r6rs claim that it is the Right Thing?
Yes. Mike Sperber does, at any rate. At ILC 2007, the
title of his invited talk was "It's All about Being Right:
Lessons from the R6RS Process" [1]. Here is the last
sentence of his abstract:
In the talk, I will review the R6RS process, and attempt
to show that R6RS is indeed the right thing for Scheme.
elf also wrote:
> what exactly is meant by 'portable', however, if only three implementations
> intend to support r6?
The implementors of at least five systems have announced
their intention to support the R6RS: Chez Scheme, Ikarus,
Larceny, PLT Scheme, and Scheme 48.
> portability does not seem to be a pressing concern.
You are right about that. In theory and in practice,
R6RS programs are less portable than the R5RS programs
they are intended to supplement.
For example, the R6RS editors took care to specify the
syntax and semantics of library version numbers, but
failed to specify any portable way for users to write
a library as part of the code for a Scheme script or
top-level R6RS program. Indeed, an R6RS-conforming
implementation is allowed to reject all programs that
use libraries other than those specified in the R6RS
library document.
Will
[1]
http://www.international-lisp-conference.org/2007/speakers#sperber_michael
Received on Tue Oct 30 2007 - 18:38:14 UTC