RE: scsh in PLT Scheme?

["Alex Peake" <apeake@comac.com>]

I find it rather insulting that you call my view of the world "simplistic".

When developing business applications -- built around relational databases,
message queueing, web services, XML/XSLT, email and the rest -- you must
rely on "components" developed by others ot be productive.

Micrososft and Java are the only commercially viable bases for such a rich
set of components.

.NET is where Microsoft is investing billions of dollars. Few can match the
innovation coming from that. (COM still exists, and PLT rather nicely
supports that, but it is not the future.)

Similarly Java is where Sun, IBM, Oracle and others are placing their (beat
Microsoft) bets.

With that financial and creative might, that is where I put my bet on it
being viable three years from now.

Remember, in the commercial world, the name of the game is programmer
productivity.

Alex

BTW, what is POSIX (in a modern desktop and server world)? ;)


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-plt-scheme@fast.cs.utah.edu
[mailto:owner-plt-scheme@fast.cs.utah.edu]On Behalf Of MJ Ray
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 9:18 AM
To: plt-scheme@fast.cs.utah.edu
Subject: Re: scsh in PLT Scheme?


Alex Peake <apeake@comac.com> wrote:
> Being able to interoperate (call and be called) with Microsoft .NET means
[...]
> Interoperability is the key for application developers (such as myself),
> especially since languages like Scheme cannot afford the investment that
the
> Microsoft development community puts in to "components".
>
> As for Java, the issue is the same for the ABM (Anything But Microsoft)
[...]

What a simplistic view of the world you have.  Your description suggests
that everything is either Microsoft and following their marketing campaigns
slavishly, or they're anti-Microsoft and willing to support that other
proprietary system Java.

I think it would be more useful to have a better interface to the mature
neutral standard of POSIX before worrying about the latest wave of hype
sweeping the net.  Even the Microsoft platforms still support (some?) POSIX
and there is a COM interface in there already.

Some reviews quoted in cls suggest that there will be a heavy performance
penalty to pay for trying to use Scheme's richer type system inside the
rather poor .NET CLR.  Let the system mature (or more likely be killed by
its masters, IMO) and then consider it.  There is little to gain from doing
this now, as other Schemers are already discovering the pitfalls for us.