[plt-scheme] Science Collection

Eli,

Thanks for the stimuli.
Please find my responses to your stimuli
interspersed below.

Gene

--- Eli Barzilay <eli at barzilay.org> wrote:

> On Oct  4, Gene Sullivan wrote:
>> If you either don't want to foster diversity or
>> specifically wish to favor PLT scheme over other
>> [...]
> 
> *OR* if he uses any of the many features PLT Scheme
> has that other implementations do not.
> 
> (Your message make it sound like all Schemes are
> equal, and R5RS is a
> practical language.  Both are wrong.)

I intended my message to `sound like' what I
wrote.  I did not intend for *any* one to either
`read between the lines' or `spin' it into
something other than I wrote.

The snippet you included, and presumably commented
upon, had to do with INTENT ... be it active or
passive.  Another way I could have rephrased
"don't want to" could have been `are
un(der)concered with' (vis-a-vis higher
priorities, more pressing concerns, etc.)  I also
addressed the issue of specifically favoring an
implementation over one or more others.
I do this.  I assume others do.
Which ever implmentation I am using for a scheming
session is the one I am favoring for that session.
I've favored PLT schemes (EG DrScheme and
MzScheme) during several scheming sessions.
Moreover, I've recommended DrScheme to `Close
Personal Friends'.  I have also used SLIB during
several scheming sessions.

I don't experience the least amount of inner
conflict or conscience when using SLIB with any of
the Scheme implementations I've used.  
Should I?

I know this is-qua-IS a PLT group rather than a
scheming-in-the-large group.  Just how
preferential to PLT schemes MUST a participant
be-qua-BE to prevent, preclude, or otherwise
obviate a `flame war' or have a perhaps
over-zealous individual from transmogrifying mole
hills into mountains?
 
Having read your responses to what I wrote, I
would like to comment upon what you wrote above.

I do not behold *All* -- as in all-or-nothing
thinking/cognition -- schemes to be-qua-BE
equal.  Nothing in the email I sent either
asserted or even alluded to such.  In fact
I commented on SLIB ... a scheme library
homologous to what clib is for many/most(?)
C programmers.  I certainly view SLIB as
a nonpartisan effort facilitating re-use
of scheme code by schemers-at-large.
   As to your comment about R5RS as a 
`practical' language ... it seems to me
that practicallity, like beauty, is in 
the `eye' -- in not mind -- of the beholder.
And -- correct me if I'm wrong -- one *may* 
write R5RS-compliant code in one or more
of the PLT-released implementations.  Would
such code be-qua-BE non-practical ipso_facto?
Using your subjective notion of `practical',
of course.  Or would you care to proffer
some criteria pursuant to arriving at
a consensus-reality notion of `a practical
Scheme'?  Or maybe a R5RS-compliant 
battery of tests which demonstrates just
how impractical the REPL running the tests
is-qua-IS ... which can then be incorporated
into SLIB so Schemers-at-large can `find out'
just how impractical the 
forgive-them-lord-they-know-not-what-they-do,
also-ran implemenation of Schemes they 
are (mis)using vis-a-vis that (or those?)
which such a battery of tests would
`objectively' `eval'uate.

PS If you, in the future, have questions
regarding what I have written, please feel
free to ask for clarification.  Please,
on the other hand, refrain from `reading
between the lines', `putting words in my mouth',
or `spinning' ... if you can resist. ;-]

Sincerely,
  Gene Sullivan

> -- 
>           ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))   
>       Eli Barzilay:
>                   http://www.barzilay.org/          
>       Maze is Life!
> 
(progn (mail-mode) (set-fill-column 50))


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