> In the past, consensus was required, not just a large
> majority.
I doubt that previously consensus meant consensus of everyone on the
internet. It will be a long time waiting for that!
> I suspect that this would have been a wise tradition to
> continue. I also think that the opinion of people like Olin Shivers,
> Jonathan Rees, Marc Feeley, William Clinger, Gerald Sussman, and
> others
> ought to have some weight...
Gerry Sussman couldn't care less! ;) You might notice that he didn't
vote (nor did Olin for that matter). The point is, that he's not
going to complain about someone else making a new standard, even if
he hated it. I'm sure he feels that he has much better things to
do. He'll go on using what he's using (MIT Scheme) and be fine with it.
Jonathan Rees's comments on the ratification results page, are, I
think, an excellent piece of dissent. It's positive, balanced, and
not acrimonious in the least. Further, it's written with an eye
towards progress, rather than halting progress. These guys are not
going to waste time complaining about R6RS. Well, ok, Marc, you
complain some ;) -- but Marc's doing something productive about it!
(Snow.)
What is the point of this ongoing flamewar? Other than to paint a
perfect picture---an idealized model---of infighting in a small
community.
Older guys like Matthias may find this kind of thing "amusing". But
for me it's just a bit depressing. For whatever reason, Scheme has
played a big part in my life (15/27 years of it), and so it's worked
its way into my self image; I'm a Schemer. So I just hate to think
that this community I'm part if is not only small, but is festooned
with bickering.
Ok, so maybe I'm overly sensitive, and maybe this is just how
discourse on the internet must be. But hasn't the time come to heed
Matthias's suggestion and get to work? Let's not sit around and
argue ourselves into total irrelevance. The times are changing.
Parallelism is at the forefront of everyone's mind, scripting
languages are popular (and so are dynamic ones). Moving forward,
Scheme might have something interesting to contribute. R6RS is just
one more stake in the ground in the long line of Scheme and Lisp
variants.
If the r6rs list is sticking around, it sounds like a good place to
talk about implementing r6rs... or code being written for r6rs, or
porting applications to R6, or *something* productive!
Best,
-Ryan
On Oct 30, 2007, at 8:21 AM, Jon Wilson wrote:
> Hi Aziz,
>
> Abdulaziz Ghuloum wrote:
>> 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.
>>
>
> Or to put it yet another way, you feel that you can safely ignore the
> opinion of those who disagree with you simply because they disagree
> with
> you? Danger, Will Robinson!
>
>>> 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.
>
> Actually, I'm concerned more about the large number of implementations
> which did adopt R5, which also have no intention of adopting R6.
>
>>
>>> 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.
>
> Cite my sources... well, my source for that statement was my overall
> impression and understanding of the purposes of R6RS. Hence my
> statement "As I understood things..." In some sense, I did cite my
> sources. Perhaps I simply misunderstood things, then.
>
>> 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?
>
> By writing a standard which is good enough that the implementors of
> "legacy schemes" will want to implement the new standard, and which
> also
> does include a minimal module system for the sake of portability.
> Perhaps this is impossible. But I have yet to see any evidence to
> that
> effect.
>
>> 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.
>
> Slow down, cowboy! Actually, everyone check your watches. This is
> first time I've seen this, but I doubt it will be the last. Now, R6RS
> is "Scheme", and those who don't adopt R6RS are doing some other than
> implementing "Scheme". Only Chez, Scheme48, and PLT are now "Scheme
> implementations".
>
> I'd rather you didn't hijack a historical name in order to
> de-legitimatize those who disagree with you. I understand that there
> are a lot of other Schemers, many of them _much_ more seasoned than I
> am, who would agree with me.
>
>> 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?
>
> Well, yes. I also think that the users of those implementations with
> "0% user base" should have some weight. Clearly, the editors
> thought so
> too (at some point at least), since they opened the vote to
> everyone who
> registered. In the past, consensus was required, not just a large
> majority. I suspect that this would have been a wise tradition to
> continue. I also think that the opinion of people like Olin Shivers,
> Jonathan Rees, Marc Feeley, William Clinger, Gerald Sussman, and
> others
> ought to have some weight...
>
> If the editors really only valued the opinion of the implementors of
> PLT, Chez, and Scheme48, then they would have just asked those
> implementors whether R6RS should be ratified. Your efforts to
> marginalize the rest of us are becoming a little ridiculous.
>
>>
>>> ... 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.
>
> Ahhhhh, and the timeless ad hominem attack. One of my favorites.
> This
> one has a nice texture, pleasantly crunchy, but lacks flavor and body.
> Regards,
> Jon
>
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Received on Tue Oct 30 2007 - 23:07:26 UTC