[r6rs-discuss] "Steering"

[Michael Sperber]

Anton van Straaten <anton at appsolutions.com> writes:

> For example, the editors made many decisions outside of the R6RS SRFI
> process.  Partly as a result of that, when the first full R6RS draft
> was released, many aspects of it were being seen by the rest of the
> community for the first time.

Yes.  There's no doubt this was unfortunate.  But, as you know, most of
the decisions were made only a short time before the first full draft
came out, and it was meant to satisfy all those requirements that had
accreted earlier.  We all wanted to meet the deadline, which is why we
focussed on getting that draft written - making it public, establishing
all the infrastructure for getting feedback would have made us miss that
goal.  Still, the "veil of silence" was broken ultimately as a result of
Kent Dybvig taking over as project chair.  (His predecessor preferred
secrecy [1].)  In summary, it should be easy to do better on this aspect
from the start next time around.

> I want to be clear about one thing: in raising these issues, I'm trying 
> to be constructive, 

I know - I never meant to suggest otherwise.  I'm sorry if I sounded
that way.

-- 
Cheers =8-} Mike
Friede, Völkerverständigung und überhaupt blabla

[1] http://www.r6rs.org/r6rs-editors/2004-January/000004.html