[plt-scheme] Re: On C#

Paulo J. Matos wrote:
> On 5/22/07, Paulo J. Matos <pocm at soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>> On 5/22/07, Robert Nikander <nikander at nc.rr.com> wrote:
>> [re: f#]
> 
> OK, I should be more concise. It's not the truth that people didn't
> like it so we didn't consider it further. Some people liked it, others
> didn't (2 of the 6 I think). However, it was directly put apart for
> two reasons, one is that is a microsoft language, the second is that
> people running linux and mac also want to develop and as far as we
> know, there's no compiler for it yet in these systems. So, no further
> investigation was needed.

Yeah, I hear you.  When I was using it I had Visual Studio.  Apparently 
people use it under Mono, but I bet that's pretty painful.

After some experience trying to use languages like Scheme or OCaml on 
top of the JVM or CLR, I'm of the opinion that those systems are not 
really multi-language like they sometimes claim to be, because the 
libraries and the entire system are designed in the spirit of Java/C#, 
so you end up programming in a Java/C# mind-set, with a Scheme-like 
syntax.  Not to mention you loose advanced toys like continuations, and 
in the JVM, basics like tail recursion.  So in a sense you get the worst 
of both worlds, and creativity is stifled.  I will be long dead before 
they add continuation support to the JVM or CLR, and by then PLT will 
have some other cool thing that they can't do.

In other words, let's not be tempted by "one runtime to bind them all". :)

Rob