[r6rs-discuss] steering Scheme

[Matthias Felleisen]

On Feb 18, 2009, at 3:04 AM, r6rs-discuss-request at lists.r6rs.org wrote:

> Message: 11
> Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:04:00 -0800
> From: Thomas Lord <lord at emf.net>


Posted at http://blog.plt-scheme.org/

Sorry for the remnants of html -- Matthias

> Election time is here again. A couple more days and the Scheme  
> community will have a set of new steer-ers.

> I have argued at this place before that good language design needs  
> a feedback loop. Language designers write down specs; language  
> implementers translate those specs into compilers and interpreters;  
> programmers use these implementations to produce useful software.  
> The loop comes in when implementers inform designers of flaws,  
> inconsistencies, mistakes, errors, and other internal consistency  
> problems in the specs. This is clearly happening with R6RS, and it  
> is good. Implementers are a biased bunch, however. After all, they  
> work on just one kind of program, and in a highly specialized  
> domain that has been mined for a long time. How can you trust them?  
> [*]
>
> The loop becomes truly useful when people write large software  
> systems (not just compilers, because they really are special  
> cases!) and find that the language fails them in some way. Such  
> failures can come in a number of flavors. For a document such as  
> R6RS, we should hope that programmers can discover problems with  
> porting systems that are apparently due to ambiguities, flaws,  
> mistakes, roaches in the actual document (as opposed to a specific  
> implementation)
>

> The last thing we want from a steering committee is a radical  
> commitment to change (whatever it may be); a prejudice concerning  
> R6RS; a closed mind about the size of "Scheme" (it's too large,  
> it's too small); a willingness to steer without making  
> observations. A steering committee of overbearing curmudgeons is  
> not what we want.
>
> What we do want is a committee that is willing to figure out how  
> the listening is going to happen; how we can possibly finance a  
> systematic way of listening (writing NSF grants, anyone?); how the  
> feedback is best channeled into language design.
>
> Let's hope we get such a steering committee. The Scheme community  
> deserves it.