[r6rs-discuss] Proposed features for small Scheme, part 1: a stake in the ground

[John Cowan]

David Van Horn scripsit:

> As an exercise in trying to figure out precisely what one can expect to 
> find when moving between Schemes, I reviewed the R3,4,5,6RS and 
> IEEE/ANSI standards.  I wanted to find their least common denominator 
> (the "essential" Scheme); a list of must-haves for a Scheme to be a Scheme.

R2 and R3 are dead.  R4 is very nearly dead; the implementations that only
support R4RS are pretty much unmaintained.  R5 and R6 are where it's at.

> Essential Scheme is the minimal subset of the language expected to be
> supported by any Scheme system.  It represents the fundamental and
> simple core of the language.  It is lightweight at the semantic and
> implementation level.  It is useful for research, prototyping,
> language experimentation, and understanding existing teaching
> materials.  Its specification is comparable in size to research paper
> accounts of Scheme (i.e. much smaller than even R3RS).

84 bound symbols.  My question is, why do we need a standard as tiny as
this, when tiny R5RS-compliant systems that are perfectly practicable
for the purposes mentioned above, like chibi-scheme, already exist?
(Version 0.2 has 4308 lines of C and 708 lines of Scheme, plus 578 lines
of Scheme in tests.)

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org   http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
O beautiful for patriot's dream that sees beyond the years
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America! America!  God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law!
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