[plt-scheme] if without third argument

From: Jos Koot (jos.koot at telefonica.net)
Date: Sat Jun 28 14:13:21 EDT 2008

Hi,
After sending PLT Scheme code to other people, they frequently ask me "do 
you have an RnRS conformant version?".
Then, when making such a version I sometimes experience severe trouble. A 
standard procedure like *andmap* (it should be standard) is not in the 
indices of R6RS.
Most of the time I succeed in making an R6RS conformant version, but at the 
price of letting go of the production of comprehensible expansion time and 
run time error messages. I also feel a little bit annoyed with R6RS that I 
have to import a lot of stuff from libraries that, in my humble opinion, 
should be in the core language (e.g. syntax-case and related procedures). 
Hence I experience the question as "To adhere to a generally adopted 
standard and lack a lot of auxiliaries, or to use a particular comprehensive 
language".
PLT has changed a lot while going from 370 to 4.x, but my expecrience is 
that well coded programs are very easily adapted. Of course, for some 
programs I jhad to make substantial changes. But that only occurred in code 
that already was suspicious when I wrote it. In short: I welcome PLT Scheme 
4.x.
Jos

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Noel Welsh" <noelwelsh at gmail.com>
To: "Tamas K Papp" <tpapp at princeton.edu>
Cc: "plt-scheme list" <plt-scheme at list.cs.brown.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 5:54 PM
Subject: Re: [plt-scheme] if without third argument


> On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 4:45 PM, Tamas K Papp <tpapp at princeton.edu> wrote:
>
>> I don't see the point in porting something that conforms to a standard
>> to some dialect that does not, so I am not even going to raise this to
>> the author...
>
> That is a very dogmatic approach to take.  Standards serve us, not the
> other way around.  The R5RS Scheme standard is useless for practical
> programs, and R6RS is too new to expect a mature implementation like
> PLT Scheme to fully adopt it.
>
> N.
> _________________________________________________
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