[plt-scheme] Re: Is R6RS useless for PLT?

Tom,

Thanks for elaborating. I think I see your point.  It sounds like you
are lumping two topics together, Implementation of R6RS and the
Advocacy of R6RS, into one thing that you call "Supporting R6RS".
Those are two very different things.

PLT has provided the first, and that is no small task. Since they
worked on R6RS, arguably there is no better advocacy, but I won't
speak for them here.

It has been discussed before that Scheme is an experiment, it is an
idea that has spawned many Scheme-like languages, since there is no
one definition. Roughly, these are dialects. R6RS is one dialect in
which you are interested, I am too. Look at PLT, though, it support a
*lot* of dialects. That is the philosophy behind it. The philosophy is
not to push one single philosophy.

All of the maintainers have their own interests in particular dialects
that meet their needs (Typed, HtDP, #scheme...), so it is unfair of us
to expect them to push a single dialect. That is just not the spirit
of Scheme, anyway.

DrScheme can be used perfectly well for writing R6RS code and reading
the documentation. Everything "just works". It is awesome for R6RS.