[plt-scheme] Re: PLT-Scheme object system (was re: Image Snip initialization)

 > Thanks for the best coherent argument against parentheses
 > that I have ever heard. (It's quite possible that someone
 > has said this before; I am saying that it clicked now.)
 >
 >> I realize that PLT's mission does not include modifying
 >> Scheme itself.
 >
 > Indeed, we don't see ourselves at all as the guardians of
 > Scheme.  As you may very well know, we have pushed Scheme's
 > boundaries very much.  ...  Why?  When I speak about the
 > original  DrScheme project to academic/research audiences
 > I mention it a "project to determine the usefulness of
 > Scheme" as much as "a device for introducing novices to
 > programming (HtDP language levels)." My stock answer is
 > that "Scheme isn't useful. PLT Scheme is."

      This is quite similar to the attitude that Alan Kay
      takes with the Squeak community regarding Smalltalk-80.
      He seems surprised that so many folks remain wedded to
      ideas that were, at the time of their first implementation,
      simply experiments.  We can do more now.  Croquet is in
      large part a move in the direction of more modern ideas.

      The Squeak situation is a bit different.  Squeak is a
      useful language as it stands, and the notion of a
      Smalltalk standard is much weaker than the notion of
      standard Scheme.

---- Eugene