[Scheme-reports] Ratification vote for R7RS-small

["Sudarshan S. Chawathe" <chaw@x>]

Full name: Sudarshan S. Chawathe

Location: Trenton, Maine, USA.

Statement of Interest:

I teach Computer Science and find Scheme a valuable resource for
conveying concepts in algorithms and programming languages with a
minimum of extraneous material.  Although our university (U. of Maine),
like many others recently, has moved away from Scheme for the standard
introductory course sequence, I still use it in independent study or
special topics courses when possible.  In this regard, my interest in
Scheme is probably very similar to the early uses and motivations of the
language.  I cannot resist adding here that reading and writing Scheme
code is probably the most pleasurable programming experience for me.
Scheme's documentation, even if no longer under 50 pages, is still a
pleasure to read, which is not the case for many other similar
documents.

I also regularly use Scheme for writing programs I need for teaching,
research, and other tasks.  As a recent teaching example, I used
Scheme, primarily the Guile implementation, for implementing test
solutions to homework assignments in my theory of computation class
this semester.  A recent example in the research needs category
involves some experiments using the Kawa implementation for rapid
prototyping of Android applications for a larger project, and an
ongoing one is using Chicken and Gambit-C for work on a cluster
computer.  In the other needs category, a recent example is using the
Ikarus implementation for generating fractal images.  I also use, off
and on, several other implementations, such as MIT/GNU, Vicare, and
Chibi.

In general, Scheme is a valuable resource for my professional and
personal work and I have a strong interest in its continued vitality
and evolution.  

Vote: yes.

Rationale:

While I have read with interest the careful and cogent arguments
explaining problems with the current draft, I have also read, to me,
more compelling arguments in its favor.  In the latter category, I am
particularly moved by comments from implementors whose work have come to
use and admire.  It seems clear that there is still work to be done in
moving Scheme forward, but I find R7RS to be a clear improvement over
R5RS (for me, the library system itself is reason enough since a
nonstandard library system is very inconvenient for writing long-lived
portable code---though I realize it creates some implementation
problems) and R6RS (primarily for its ability to permit easier small
implementations and, hopefully, a cleaner library system).  The problems
with procedure equivalence, which do seem to be more serious, also seem
quite likely to get fixed soon enough.


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