"Jin S. Choi" wrote:
> >>>>> "Olin" == Olin Shivers <shivers@lcs.mit.edu> writes:
>
> Olin> - ??? Frankly, the main problem is that a lot of the heavy hitters
> Olin> have moved on to ML. Sussman's group at MIT has *one* guy hacking
> Olin> MIT Scheme.
>
> Really? Now that I'm picking up an interest in Scheme several years
> after having been first exposed to it in 6.001 freshman, everyone else
> is moving away. Sad.
Surprising? It seems like a lot of the real action is elsewhere.
What innovation has Scheme had in the past decade? Hygenic macros and
engines seem to have been the last major contributions, and both those
are from the mid-eighties. In terms of module systems, the ML people
are doing interesting things with predicative and impredicative type
systems. Not so Scheme. A lot of the implementation-related work
(GC, call/cc techniques, program analysis) is equally valid elsewhere;
soft typing may be the one exception to this (and even that based on
disputed philosophical ground).
ML's best implementation is free. Scheme has a bunch of middling
systems, and the one real (extant) compiler is commercial. Scheme
lacks the kind of debugging support and development environment one
finds for the C family. The "standards" are neither here nor there.
Oh well. (umount /soapbox)
'shriram
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