

R6RS Ratified (Let the complaining begin) - apgwoz
http://www.r6rs.org/ratification/results.html

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dfranke
About 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
The 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
I 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.

~~~
palish
Speaking of votes, isn't this classic "design by committee"?

~~~
euccastro
No, this is design by coup d'etat.

------
nickb
Scheme wants to be Common Lisp.

~~~
brlewis
There 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
_Many 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.

