[plt-scheme] upcoming change in PLT Scheme v300

I appreciate very much the proposed changes to PLT Scheme.
But why are you so incredibly conservatist? One should go
further.

Let me point out some pedagogical implications of the
status quo.

The most detestable form for my students is DEFINE.
All or almost all other programming languages, including
functional ones live very well without DEFINE. (Actually
almost none have this bizarre construction LET whose
meaning is usually completely abstract for the fresh
undergraduates. And this is still extremely easy as compared
with LETREC; I would eliminate both of them.)

And for the French students there is another urgent affair.
If you know French, you may be aware that in an elegant
society the word CONS n'a aucune raison d'exister. So the
list processing functions should be redesigned as well, at
least lexically.

On the other hand, all those who teach Scheme have from time
to time show a full-fledged, relatively complete program, which
does a lot...

How many times had I to say (more or less):

"And now, go to the line 174, and see for yourself where this
 variable is used and how".

Thus, I propose that you

* introduce meaningful line numbering. I badly miss that!
* the GOTO construction.

Thank you for your contribution to the progress of
Hanumanity.


Jerzy Karczmarczuk

Caen, Normandy, France.
(Caen is the place where the campaign of William the Conqueror
began. Because of him, the current version of Scheme is not
written in a Saxo-Danish dialect, but in a language where such
words as 'campaign' are heavily used.)