[plt-scheme] Papers on criticism of Scheme?

On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 8:16 PM, Alex Shinn <alexshinn at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Grant Rettke" <grettke at acm.org> writes:
> I think Wadler knew it well.
>
> It's pretty clear that at the time he wrote that paper he
> barely knew Scheme at all.

Ok. I *assumed* he knew it well. On page 2 he talks about using SICP
and Scheme for two years, but now I look at it and see that he didn't
teach it, Joe Stoy taught it. Ack.

I had assumed the crazy things he said in the paper were just gross
exaggerations made solely for the sake of drama. Eg:

* Students can't tell the difference between cons and list
* Students can't tell the difference between (list 'x) '(x) and (x)
* Students screw up if they get lazy

> On page 13 he actually admits to having typed into a REPL
>
>  ((+ 3 4) = (+ 5 2))
>
> the sort of mistake you wouldn't expect anyone who had spent
> more than a few days working with Scheme to make, yet in the
> same paragraph he claims to be "an experienced Lisp
> programmer."

Yes that is... strangle.