On Oct 27, 2007, at 10:32 AM, Jon Wilson wrote: > R. Kent Dybvig wrote: >> While it would be great if every implementation were to adopt >> R6RS, that >> was never a possibility given the small number that fully adopted >> R5RS.
To put it another way, if an implementor never planned on ever adding a full numeric tower, hygienic macros, call/cc, dynamic-wind, multiple values, etc etc to his Scheme implementation (call it a pre-R4RS era Scheme), then it's only expected that such implementor is not going to adopt R6RS. As a Schemer, I don't care about such implementation and its implementor's opinion about R6RS. It's simply irrelevant. > Then why bother writing and ratifying R6RS? Because there are people out there who apparently do care about the stuff that's in R6RS. Again, if the implementor of your legacy Scheme implementation of choice never cared about R5RS, then sorry, but that does not mean that we all have to suffer the consequences. Those who bothered writing and ratifying R6RS care about seeing it happen, and it is sickening how their actions and motives have to be challenged at every occasion. > As I understood things, there were two goals for R6RS: > > * Fixing a number of minor issues and ill-defined things in R5RS > * Increasing the cross-implementation portability of Scheme code Site your sources. The first page of the ratified R6RS standard document lists a different set. And how do you propose that "increasing cross-implementation portability of Scheme code" is going to be achieved if your implementor rejects anything that goes beyond their current set of favorite R[345]RS picks? R6RS intends to "allow programmers to create and distribute substantial program and libraries (e.g. SRFIs) that run without modification in a variety of Scheme implementations". The "Scheme implementations" are those that adopt R6RS of course. Now whether this will be achieved is yet to be seen, but I can see it taking shape already (see SRFI-41 and try loading the R5RS code in your favorite Scheme implementation). > Since the standard was such that very few implementors were going to > bother with it Seriously, do you think that the opinion of some of the implementors whose implementations have 0% user base have any weight as far as how everybody else should go about doing business? > ... the standard had already failed its most important goal! > ... > ... A standard which is largely unimplemented is a useless > standard ... You forgot to mention putting your tin-foil hat on. Aziz,,, _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
