I'm not sure this was clear, but I think the clear goal for backwards compatibility is that code that used to run continues to run indefinitely. With no changes. That's certainly what the Racket core developers mean by "backwards compatible". In other words "requiring porting" is the opposite of "backwards compatible", at least in my mind.
Robby On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 11:33 AM Breck Yunits <bre...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I'd recommend investing work to make the problem of porting Racket1 code to > RacketN painless. Hopefully as simple as one method call. > > If translating Racket1 code to RacketX is made an easy problem, then you can > do what is best for RacketX without worrying about how backwards > compatibility. > > That would pay dividends in other areas as well, regardless of what direction > Racket2 goes in. > > > On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 6:28 AM Jay McCarthy <jay.mccar...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> My thoughts are in the thread you linked to: >> >> https://github.com/racket/racket2-rfcs/issues/105#issuecomment-521446706 >> """ >> I see Racket2 through the rubric of "We almost never break backwards >> compatible and insist on gradual evolution as the only way to make >> progress; but, now we are willing to make some radical changes: What >> can we do to make Racket drastically better that can't be expressed as >> an evolution?" In other words, I feel like Racket2 is defined as the >> goal, "Whatever makes Racket a lot better" and the design constraint, >> "It's okay to be incompatible." >> """ >> >> When it comes specifically to syntax, which is what you seem to be >> asking about by reading the quote, here's a quote from my attempts to >> write this up before: >> >> https://github.com/racket/racket2-rfcs/pull/109/files#diff-f609e36bab3cb71c8829f58a5f9b2455R16 >> """ >> The uniformity of S-expressions limits the amount of information at >> the notational level of reading Racket programs. A small amount of >> extra notation can go a long way with a small number of mores on its >> use. For example, in Racket brackets are used in S-expressions when no >> function or macro application is implied (like in the cases of a >> `cond`); reading Racket programs without this notational affordance is >> more difficult. On the other hand, it is awkward to embed arbitrary >> fragments of code not in S-expression format, such as when quoting a >> program in another language. The only effective option is to embed a >> string. The Racket @-reader is helpful at this, but it is not >> uniformly available and the standard structure of Racket's >> S-expression based languages do not allow macro-specific reading of >> such syntaxes. >> """ >> >> I'll add that I see S-expressions as obviously limited and it would be >> nice to make a more powerful syntactic extension system that does not >> say, "You can have anything you want, provided it is a parenthesis." >> >> So for me, I don't see the syntax mission as having anything to do >> with students or getting people to like me, I see it as a way to go >> beyond the limitations of S-expressions and do something more powerful >> and interesting. I think people will like us more after in as much as >> I think people like awesome things, and I want to make something >> awesome. >> >> Jay >> >> -- >> Jay McCarthy >> Associate Professor @ CS @ UMass Lowell >> http://jeapostrophe.github.io >> Vincit qui se vincit. >> >> On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 1:09 AM David Storrs <david.sto...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > The discussion on Racket2 seems to have moved offlist to the RFC list on >> > github (https://github.com/racket/racket2-rfcs/issues); are there other >> > locations? >> > >> > There is one question that I had back at the beginning of the process that >> > I didn't manage to get clarity on, which is the rationale behind the whole >> > thing. I've gone back through some of the email discussion and gone >> > through all 4 pages of the issues lists and read everything that seemed >> > relevant. The most apropos thing seems to be this: >> > https://github.com/racket/racket2-rfcs/issues/105 but it still doesn't >> > really speak to my question. >> > >> > My current understanding is that the rationale for the Racket2 effort >> > looks something like this: >> > >> > "We, the core developers, many (all?) of whom are also academics with a >> > lot of experience teaching Racket to new programmers, have noticed that >> > parentheses and prefix notation are a stumbling block for many students. >> > We would like to help the ideas of Racket spread into the larger >> > community. Therefore, we want to produce Racket2, which will have all the >> > power of Racket but will get rid of parens and use infix notation, which >> > will be more familiar and intuitive to students. We also see this as a >> > great time to improve existing elements of the language based on what >> > we've learned since they were added, and potentially add new features." >> > >> > Is this in fact correct? Is there more specific discussion of it >> > somewhere that I've missed? I don't want to make people retread the issue >> > if it's already clearly laid out elsewhere. >> > >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> > "Racket Users" group. >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> > email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> > To view this discussion on the web visit >> > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/racket-users/CAE8gKodAh%2BdO3v8bx0bmPJYUhtDmVgX2KrxH8N3QwtG43aX%2BYg%40mail.gmail.com. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Racket Users" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/racket-users/CAJYbDan4dqov1uswGhpe_Q7Tmh%3DyO6zQ6FwyU7XY6fnqXPgdfg%40mail.gmail.com. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Racket Users" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/racket-users/CAOgHByt6B55NfD6sY-gkh%2B01XP0xUy7Cb5t-uVWTSqq4gR0sSA%40mail.gmail.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Racket Users" group. 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