

Scheme to become two languages - apgwoz
http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3582

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jknupp
Actually, it's not being split at all. There's going to be a "small" variant
that is a proper subset of the "large", or complete variant. Small would just
be a reduced feature set.

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cesare
This is a great idea.

To keep a standard subset for lightweight implementations (which are better
suited for embedded systems, or for being embedded as a scripting language).
How cool is this?

Edit: not to mention that a greater portability among the full featured
implementations would be even more cool.

I'm so happy to see Scheme alive and kicking.

~~~
runinit
I'm currently planning out a project that involves building a OSC controller
using an ARM chip. I hope I will be able to use scheme to write the firmware
for the device, that would be swell (and much more fun than using ASM).

~~~
kragen
How do you like Lua?

~~~
runinit
I have very little experience programming so i figured an embedded system
would give me a good "ground up" approach to learning some programming. I've
heard good things about lua, i was considering ADA (rock solid stability is
key for this project) or smalltalk. I'm still in the planning stages of
everything involving this project and infact i'm going to build a midibox
first to get familiar with embedded systems and circuit design. Some people
have made some impressive controllers, and synths with the project.

<http://www.midibox.org/> <http://www.ucapps.de/>

~~~
kragen
Oh, well, you should try some stuff before you make up your mind, then. Ada
and Smalltalk couldn't be much more different.

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apotheon
This kinda looks like a linkjacked version of that:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777666>

~~~
silentbicycle
It's on Lambda the Ultimate, which is a well-known programming language theory
discussion site. While the link could have been to the steering committee
statement, the signal-to-noise ratio for LtU's discussion will probably be on
par with HN's.

It's worth browsing their archives (<http://lambda-the-
ultimate.org/classic/lambda-archive1.html>) sometime, when you have a couple
hours. Great stuff. (I'm only posting the link because it's a Friday
afternoon. ;) )

~~~
apotheon
Oh, I read stuff there from time to time, and it's often interesting. I just
didn't see anything in the original posting at LtU that made me think "Yes, it
was definitely important to submit this instead of the actual meat of the
matter."

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Tichy
Why do languages always have to evolve? On average, do languages get better
over time or do they deteriorate? I am sure that Java has deteriorated a lot.

Keep it simple, please!

~~~
gnaritas
Java was never simple. Scheme is simple, Smalltalk is simple, Java was always
a beast.

~~~
Tichy
Probably, but they still managed to make it far worse (generics, annotations,
...).

~~~
lsd5you
Neah. Generics are useful. Not perfect, but useful. They also happen to be
optional.

The language evolution has been good, but too slow.

Even the platform evolution has been good, they have (and perhaps still) set
the standard for many types of libraries.

My main issue is the growth of the platform (to what, 200mb?). I would like a
much tighter standard library. In an ideal world, Swing, XML parsing ... etc.
should be seperate, deprecated items removed and old apis redone.

~~~
nradov
200MB? The latest JRE is only about 20MB. Those libraries consume very little
space.

~~~
Tichy
20 MB might just be the loader, though. I recently installed the JDK after a
long pause and I was appalled at how unpleasant the process had become.

~~~
nradov
No, 20MB is the complete JSE runtime download including all libraries.

------
andreyf
How can anyone think that deciding on expressions of computation should be
done by committee? Imagine mathematicians were to get together to agree on
standardized terminology for papers - what a waste of time it would be!

~~~
thunk
Assuming you're not being facetious, I happen to think mathematics would be
more advanced today if a little attention was paid to standardizing its
notation:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=733265>

But don't take that as enthusiasm for committees.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Almost _no one_ is enthusiastic about committees. That doesn't make them any
less of a necessary evil.

------
polos
We already have both Theory Focused Lisp (Scheme) and Practice Focused Lisp
(CL).

What did I (sorry, I meant you :) miss?

~~~
herdrick
The idea is that Scheme has been controlled by the expansionists lately and
has gotten pretty large and practical.

As for why people don't just use CL, Scheme isn't laden with the historical
mistakes that Common Lisp is, Scheme is still capable of evolving, and "large
Scheme" is much more approachable to beginners than CL because of DrScheme and
other efforts of the PLT people. And some people just like Scheme's approach
better.

~~~
polos
_historical mistakes_ (regarding CL) is only an opinion, not a fact.

For many aspects it's a huge advantage of CL to not having continuously evolve
into something slightly different and only opinionatedly better.

I know both Scheme and CL, and I'll continue to prefer CL for at least the
next decade coming, I think.

Meantime, I like all the effort anybody is putting in any kind of Lisp, and I
always follow the different attempts (the different Schemes, Arc, Clojure).

~~~
herdrick
No I think Common Lisp does have more mistakes than Scheme. But I should have
said, "Scheme isn't _as_ laden with mistakes..." And that's partly because
most of the current Scheme standard was evolved after the Common Lisp standard
was set.

Agreed on your last point, and I recommend trying Clojure out for some little
project. It might surprise you how much more succinct it is than Common Lisp.
Arc too, from what I've heard.

