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Re: Scheme acceptance [no flames]
Hi Shriram,
I _absolutely_ agree with every single point you made in your response. You
should not advocate Scheme to me. I am already a Scheme convert and for
real. The reason I started the whole discussion is to find out why it repeatedly
have happened in recent years that a new half-backed ad hoc language comes into
existence and almost overnight gets wide acceptance, community, (some)
industrial support and money. On many occasions industry have shown that they
are _desperate_ for a good scripting/prototyping language. Therefore, it is
unclear to me why Scheme has never been chosen to fill this niche. Scheme is
mature, has been around for quarter of century. There is vast expertise how to
write Scheme interpreters, virtual machines and optimized compilers. Having a
scripting language based upon Scheme has a head start in terms of R&D and time to
market. Yet, despite these obvious advantages other projects gets all the
industry attention. It ought to be some reason for this.
Also a language is as good as the libraries it provides. To get libs done one
needs either of the two (better both): monetary support or a big community. It
looks that ad hoc lingo's are succesful in getting both. For example, Perl or
Python guys get paid doing consulting. I would be very glad if you guys can get
similar monetary compensation but as far as I know noone is interested in Scheme
in my organizaton. You are right saying that Scheme is a framework. That is
exactly why it is fragmented.
[My other comments follow and are interspersed in-between lines of our original
posting:]
>>>>> "SK" == Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk@cs.brown.edu> writes:
SK> Paul Fernhout has been playing with a new Scheme syntax. Hopefully
SK> he will respond with some notification of its status. I should
SK> warn, though, that lots of people have tried to come up with a
SK> better syntax for Scheme (including, blush, Matthias and I). I've
SK> never seen a success (ditto).
How about Dylan?
SK> The rarely-understood detail about Scheme is the beauty of the
SK> tail-call. This combined with macros is what makes Scheme the
SK> perfect language for implementing many domain-specific languages
SK> without fretting over underlying implementation details. If other
SK> people don't get this, what to do? What do you suggest? Design is
SK> one of the hardest things to teach; how to build a compiler is, in
SK> contrast, a stroll in the park. And yet Scheme is all about design;
SK> it's the ultimate stylist.
I beleive that tail-call is very well understood and appreciated. That is
exactly why ad hock languages, which pretend to provide functional programming
features, suck that much. For example, neither Perl nor Python have proper tail
recursion even though it is possible to implement.
>> Illustative example is Guile: they are stagnating but they do not
>> have enough courage to admit this and switch to another more
>> healthier Scheme project like MzScheme which could well double the
>> community.
SK> You are dead on in your observations about the Scheme community. So
SK> let me suggest something useful: instead of posting here, go post on
SK> the Guile list saying what you've said above (-:.
I started Scheme with Guile year ago and quickly moved to MzScheme as a superior
implementation. I followed Guile mailing list for a short time. But pretty soon
I realised Guile gets nowhere and I dropped out. Guile was very ambitious
project early on with a personal blessing and backing of RMS. Despite of all the
hype Guile is a sinking ship.
>> Next example is Scheme Shell scsh. It is based upon yet another
>> Scheme vertual machine called Scheme48 (correct me if I am
>> wrong). Scheme48 is not supoported anymore and scsh version number
>> is < 0.5 (beta quality at best) for several years already. This kind
>> of fragmentation makes no good for anyone.
SK> Also, it's hugely unfair to criticize Scsh based on its version
SK> number. Have you actually studied or used Scsh? If you think Olin's
SK> v0.5 is "beta at best", you would have to consider Python to be in
SK> v0.3 or so. Don't hold Olin's modesty against him!
Well, I understand that you folks in academia do not care much about marketing
and public relations but in the "big, ugly world" there is a comon preception
that the first stable release is "1.0". I must admit I never tried scsh, exactly
because I though it is not supported (having no release > 1.0 for several
years).
Leo
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