Comments on: R6RS ratification guesstimate results

by: Robert

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:02:42 +0000

I am just an onlooker at the moment but if you only get a 70% approval for a language change; I would reconsider the idea. I have read a few dissenting answers to the draft and if I were to vote (not that I could) I would vote a resounding no.

by: Arto Bendiken

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:24:45 +0000

Well, voting is now closed and we shall know how it went in a matter of two weeks or so… I also voted against ratification.

by: gg

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:02:16 +0000

Having a language defined in operational semantics is very important.
Maybe I’m clueless, but my guess is that this will open the door to lisp reading lisp at an unprecedented level.
Code-walkers ahoy.
And then you can begin to have system-level software that process system-level software *as defined formally by a standard*.
Common Lisp, for instance, has not achieved this.

by: Dan Muresan

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 06:31:09 +0000

Chris and John, that’s somewhat encouraging…

Adrien (Pierard ?), I thought your statement was slightly “pro”. BTW, I agree that things like TCP, binary I/O etc need to be standardized, but I believe the correct process is via SRFIs. That’s how we got hash tables, byte vectors, a thread API and countless other goodies that can be widely used across implementations. Very few things need to be solved at the language level (like cleaning up the mess that ensued when R5RS unwisely removed define-macro).

by: Adrien

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:55:08 +0000

Well, I wonder whether you thought pro or cons of my submitted short text (pun somewhat intended), but there is the expressed opinion of a hundedth people, and the choice that will be made by hopefully many more users. I know schemers who didn’t apply for some reason or another.

However, I somewhat regret that leanrning Scheme implies learning one implementation. I’d rather see in Scheme maybe more “useful” requirements, such as network (tcp/ip at least), a good time measure. How many potential users did we let go because they initially chose a Scheme implementation that didn’t suit their expectations ? How many of them fled thinking “Scheme stinks ! It ain’t even possible to read and write a socket !” (not even considering bidirectional ports).

Should R6RS be accepted by most of the voters, let’s then hope the rest of the community won’t stick to R[45]RS, or [insert your favourite Scheme implementation that rules the others, no matter what].

by: John Nowak

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 21:37:15 +0000

As someone with a rather opaque submission, I do hope you’re wrong. I think many were opaque simply as a matter of politeness. Not for a second have I considered voting “yes”.

by: Chris Dutchyn

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 21:11:24 +0000

I suspect you may be reading more into the statements than is there. Given that many were written before the official release of R6RS, “R6RS will [insert benefit here]” appears to be a statement of “I expect R6RS to provide [insert benefit]”, and if the proposal doesn’t end up providing those benefits or impose other excessive penalties, then people may defeat it. I haven’t decided yet.