On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 11:02 PM, Eli Barzilay <[email protected]> wrote: >> However, for a primarily teaching language, making it easier to >> teach to people who don't already program is important. > [....] > But you know what? I'm officially declaring myself tired of this > "primarily teaching language" myth. I've been fighting way too many > years with people who had this misconception of "yes, it's a cute > language to learn programming with, but you must be joking if you > expect me to use it in a *real* application". > [...] > I take the "primarily teaching language" as one of the biggest > contributions to these failures. > > So yes, it is a good language to teach -- and I continue to do so. > But it's a damn good language to use for the rest of your professional > life as a programmer, and keeping people as active Scheme users is > much more important to me.
I agree. Scheme is not primarily a teaching language. The language itself is an exercise in minimalism, and it should remain so. The interface to the rest of the world can reflect whatever ugly complexity is required. I don't think there is inherently unresolvable conflict in the two goals [minimalism and industrial strength]. The question is to what extent one goal can be put aside for the sake of the other, and if there is a commitment to that eventual resolution. If some eventual wart of a feature is proposed for the language for the sake of industrial strength, without some assurance that it will eventually disappear or be proven unsimplifiable, then the proponents of minimalism have little choice but to attempt to prevent its adoption in the first place. Perhaps there should be an "exploding language feature" - feature X is adopted with the proviso that it be shown indispensible (reduced to its essence) by Y date, or it will disappear from the language. At Y date, the results of the intervening research are examined and a revised standard is issued without any new business considered. Lynn _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
