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ERR5RS: extending the R5RS (Scheme R6RS dissenters) (groups.google.com)
7 points by nickb on Sept 13, 2007 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments



For those just joining the party, some background:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47803


These don't sound like dissenters to me; more like just trying to design a R5.5RS to ease the transition to R6.


I think you got this impression from William Clinger's proposal. He seems the most diplomatic from the gang, and still he isn't talking about migrating to R6RS, but cherry picking redeemable features from R6RS to enrich a design mostly based on R[45]RS. Most explicitly ((de)emphasis mine):

The development of Extended R5RS Scheme might even provide a practical migration path from the R5RS to some future standard that supersedes both the R5RS and the R6RS while unifying the Scheme community to a degree that might be hard to imagine at this moment.

http://scheme-punks.cyber-rush.org/wiki/index.php?title=ERR5...

Note, anyway, that Clinger's manifesto, while probably being an inspiration for the initiative, is not that prominent in the front page. See the opening paragraphs there:

On 29 August 2007, the Revised Revised Revised Revised Revised Revised Report on Scheme was ratified by the Steering Committee. This has made a lot of people quite angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Many programmers believe that it was created by some sort of community process, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Standard was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. This theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI, and so, standards being the puzzling documents that they are, other standards are being designed.

http://scheme-punks.cyber-rush.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main...

And some more aggressive statements of purpose:

To support the development of new standards for Scheme that fork from R4RS and R5RS in parallel to the R6RS.

[...]

To agree upon a new name to clearly distinguish it from The Language Formerly Known As Scheme (AKA R6RtlfkaS AKA R6RS).

http://scheme-punks.cyber-rush.org/wiki/index.php?title=Char...

So..


Well said euccastro. The reason why I said it was the 'dissenters' is because if you take a look at the votes, you will see how these people voted.

http://www.r6rs.org/ratification/results.html

dfranke, no, these people do not have any plans to move to R6. R6, in their minds, is an abomination of Scheme and they will develop a parallel standard that's a lot less invasive and heavy.




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