[racket] Poll: Does anybody besides Doug use 'plot'?

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 12:32 PM, Neil Van Dyke <neil at neilvandyke.org> wrote:
> Robby Findler wrote at 09/30/2011 01:05 PM:
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 12:01 PM, John Clements
>> <clements at brinckerhoff.org>  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>  In my world, a change will fall into the "yes, racket is a rapidly
>>> changing language" bin;
>>> it's not unusual for much of my old code to be broken.
>>>
>>
>> I realize this is a meta question, but is this the world we really
>> want Racket to be in?
>>
>
> I want it to be stable (backward-compatible changes in general).  However, I
> also want it to continue to innovate.  I think that the interactivity
> between the developers and users of the platform permits us to have both.
>  Sometimes, you can simply ask "hey, is it OK with everyone if I break
> such-and-such slightly, requiring you to make a small code change?", and if
> the answer is yes, you collectively save a person-week of work and also
> avoid some legacy cruft.

In this case, the two alternatives are the same amount of work, if I
understand correctly.

> On the other hand, if you want Racket to be an exercise and showcase for
> perfect backward compatibility, that might be interesting.  Perhaps someone
> can find some novel techniques to help do that, and some way of
> demonstrating the contribution (seamless backward compatibility throughout
> evolution, without some cost that systems traditionally incur to satisfy
> that).

I don't think that we're even close to this. :)

Roby