4 ms·
R6RS Ratified (Let the complaining begin)
- nickb 19y agoScheme wants to be Common Lisp.
- palish 19y agoGod I hope not.
- euccastro 19y agoOr rather, a minority of the Scheme implementors want it to be.
- brlewis 19y agoThere are certainly good ideas in CL that can help Scheme. Many of the differences are a matter of taste. For those who like small languages, R4RS isn't going away.
- euccastro 19y agoMany of the differences are a matter of taste. Precisely! :) R4RS isn't going away. But any newcomer will consider the most recent version the default, and assume the others are obsolete. In other languages you seldom ever have a reason to start with an older standard unless you have legacy code to maintain. And that is the reason why they called the whole scam R6RS.
- dfranke 19y agoAbout time. I hope it isn't another decade before R7RS. A lot of people are complaining because R6 is so much bigger than R5. While a clean, tiny spec is a beautiful thing, it is empirically not a recipe for being able to get real work done without compromising portability. If you care about minimalism more than you care about that kind of portability, R5RS isn't going anywhere. This isn't Windows; there's no end-of-life schedule that's going to force you to upgrade. My gripe about R6RS is that it doesn't go far enough: any sufficiently large project is still going to require non-portable extensions. But it's a leap in the right direction and we've been waiting long enough. As long as we'll eventually see an R7RS, I'm glad this revision was ratified.
- palish 19y agoThe question might be, "Was R6RS ratified simply because a change is needed or because R6RS is the correct solution?" On the comments, one of the very first complaints is that R6RS's library system is still inadequate. That seems like a grave sign for any programming language. As far as I can tell, all popular languages have a well-defined library system and popular frameworks have a well-defined plugin system, so needless hassles in terms of crafting those will only dampen popularity.
- apgwoz 19y agoI think they should hold out to R5.98RS personally, fix a few more of the things that people complain about and perhaps hit 75 YES votes. There's obviously still room for improvement.
- euccastro 19y agoIf you care about minimalism more than you care about that kind of portability, R5RS isn't going anywhere. If you care about that kind of portability more than you care about excellent design and the consensus (as opposed to majority) that has made Scheme what it is, then Common Lisp isn't going anywhere.
- dfranke 19y agoR6RS is already better than ANSI CL.