[Scheme-reports] Formal comment: Adoption of R6RS

[Michael Sperber <sperber@x>]

Formal Comment

the submitter's name: Michael Sperber
The submitter's email address: sperber@x
the draft version of the report: draft 6
a one-sentence summary of the issue: Adoption of the standard *was* as widespread as had been hoped
a full description of the issue:

(I apologize in advance for being obnoxious about it.  It does rankle
me.  I'll shut up after this one.)  The "Background" section has this
gem:

"The size and goals of the R6RS, however, were controversial, and
adoption of the new standard was not as widespread as had been hoped."

While it's hard to remember *any* language standard that was
uncontroversial, at least the last part of the sentence is sufficiently
vague to be misleading and tendentious.  (Adoption was certainly as fast
as *I* had hoped, so there.)  In fact, adoption of R6RS among
*implementors* has been quite widespread:

http://www.r6rs.org/implementations.html

(This list would be the envy of just about any other programming
language community, if it weren't about Scheme.)

Given that most of this support was developed shortly after R6RS had
been ratified, adoption was significantly faster than with R5RS.  If
"adoption" is relevant criterion, than it's mystifying why the R7RS
committee went back to a version of the standard that fared worse than
R6RS in that regard.  What is true is that the elected Steering
Committee did not like R6RS, and probably felt justified in departing
from R6RS by the electorate.

-- 
Regards,
Mike

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