On Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 10:05 AM Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen <
xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
In fact, if R7RS-large wants to fulfill the goals that are set for it,
it will have to include a subset equivalent of R6RS anyway. Now with
syntax-case having become a part of R7RS-large, everything speaks for
actually using R6RS as this subset and not to create something
incompatible.
When the Steering Committee (Clinger, Feeley, Hanson, Rees, Shivers) appointed me chair of WG2, they asked me to draft the charter. My original included a clause requiring compatibility with R6RS. I got more pushback from the SC on that clause than on the whole rest of the charter. The SC definitely did *not* want full R6 compatibility, although they were okay with transplanting components of it, as the current charter provides for. I am the SC's servant, so if you want change here, you need a political solution: you can lobby the SC to change its mind, or raise a groundswell of public opinion that the current SC should be replaced.
Thus, we will probably
have to build on existing implementations; no one can recreate what
went into Gambit, Chez, Racket, etc. for twenty or thirty years or
more in a year or two.
I agree with this. Indeed, we may need two: one based on an existing R6 and another based on an existing Small. The issue then is which implementations require the least modification and/or are easiest to modify.
At least as much as with implementations, we should be concerned with
the audience of the standard. It's a difference if we want to address
some niche programming projections or if we want to see wider adoption
of the resulting language in mainstream software development.
I don't think we can see *wide* adoption in 2022 or later without support from a commercial company, in which case the language will be what the company wants and not the community.
In any
case, R7RS-large has to offer more than existing standards and (!)
tools. At the moment, for example, using R6RS together with some
existing portable libraries (e.g. SRFIs) still gives me a more
productive environment than the current R7RS-large.
Please tell me which libraries you have in mind.