Re: [Scheme-reports] [r6rs-discuss] returning back to pattern matching

[John Cowan <cowan@x>]

Thomas Bushnell, BSG scripsit:

> On the one hand, the goal is a Scheme in which people can easily distribute
> portable libraries and have them Just Work without any trouble. 

That's a goal of WG1 as well, and it's why the SC required WG1 Scheme to
have a module system.

> But on the other hand, as soon as such a useful library is identified,
> it is added to the standard.

Hardly.  WG2 voted on 192 proposed libraries, and decided to work on only a
third of them.  See http://tinyurl.com/wg2-ballot for details.

> This makes me suspect that WG2 is not really that confident that the
> portability will actually bear fruit, and they are nervous enough that for
> any remotely interesting library, they want to mandate it as part of the
> standard, for fear that the portability won't work.

Note that WG2 libraries are *defined* by the standard, not *mandated* by
the standard.  This is an essential and fundamental difference between
R6RS, where all libraries are mandated, and R7RS, where no libraries
except the core are mandated.  The core may very well turn out smaller
than R5RS.

-- 
And it was said that ever after, if any                 John Cowan
man looked in that Stone, unless he had a               cowan@x
great strength of will to turn it to other              http://ccil.org/~cowan
purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering
in flame.   --"The Pyre of Denethor"

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