[plt-scheme] Scheme Steering Committee Position Statement

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 11:53 AM, namekuseijin <namekuseijin at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 3:17 PM, David Van Horn<dvanhorn at ccs.neu.edu>
> wrote:
> > Sam TH wrote:
> >>
> >> On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 12:18 PM, Eduardo Bellani<ebellani at gmail.com>
> > Agreed.
> >
> > I also think the large v. small language is a false dichotomy.  If you
> want
> > to write a module (library) using nothing but lambda and apply, you can
> do
> > that in R6RS.
>
> Yes, with a mere (import (rnrs base)) it provides an even smaller
> subset than R5RS.
>

IMHO the appeal of a small language is not that it's easy to use (on the
contrary it is harder because you have to write everything from scratch),
but that it is easy to implement (besides the purity thing) - scheme is one
language where there are hobby implementations, I've not seen one for Perl,
Python, C, etc.

For the hobby language implementers, Scheme is wildly successful.


> All batteries-included Scheme implementations provide pretty much
> everything a programmer needs for real world tasks.  I just wish all
> of them provided at least one common interface for such features as
> IPC, FFI etc, beside their specific.  That's where I see
> standardization efforts could focus instead of relying on people
> possibly agreeing upon one or other SRFIs and hopefully providing
> support


In CL there are compatible layers that allow one to port from say allegro to
lispworks with relative ease.  It seems that's a better approach than trying
to standardize into a compromise that will force everyone to rewrite.

And maybe all these scheme implementations are really distinct platforms,
and we should just stick with one instead of thinking to work across
multiple ones.

My 0.1 cent.  Cheers,
yc
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