2009/9/15 David Van Horn <[email protected]>: >> 2009/9/7 Brian Harvey <[email protected]>: >>> >>> Add my vote for the proposal that "Small Scheme" = R4RS. > > This does not satisfy the requirements and goals stated in the Small Scheme > charter, which says the language "must include support for macros and > modules/libraries in a way that is appropriate for the language's small > size." ... > So now is the time to decide if collectively we can get behind the charters > as proposed by the steering committee. Despite the copious effusions on > this mailing list, I have seen very little on the matter of whether or not > the charters are sound.
You are correct, David. While it is not technically part of the standard, a large fraction of the R4RS implementations supported syntax-rules so I have tended to think R4RS == R4RS + syntax-rules, which is obviously not the case. In fact there is a reasonable debate to be had over syntax-rules versus define-macro (or a variation that works nicely with the define-syntax form). The big problem is that "modules/libraries" is poorly defined. From a static program PoV (and in the presence of a purely hygienic macro system), lambda is more than sufficient. However, Lynn Winebarger's posts on inter-library have sparked some interesting (well in my own head) ideas concerning the relationship of modules to the REPL and the whole process of building a running Scheme program. None of the ideas in my head requires anything approaching the complexity of R6RS modules - and I think that going to an R6RS model would be a large mistake. Given the poor definition of "modules" the "Proper subset" requirement between WG1 and WG2 begs the question of which WG will drive their definition and design. So to summarise, I think it is possible to view R4RS as being sufficiently close to the WG1 charters that only trivial changes are necessary. And that the charter for WG1 is fairly sane, modulo the ill-defined nature of modules - which may mean that it is not sane after all. david rush -- GPG Public key at http://cyber-rush.org/drr/gpg-public-key.txt _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
