Shriram Krishnamurthi <shriram@europa.cs.rice.edu> writes:
> Yes, and we would each love nothing more than have everyone else rally
> behind our own implementations!
this is your main point, as far as i can tell.
> It is not feasible to follow the approach you suggest. It would mean
> having to duplicate all the effort on the "local" implementation as
> well as the True one.
you are right. work would be required that does not immediately
benefit your research goals. i fail to see how that makes it
infeasible, however.
> > Is there any reason not to consider GUILE as the possible candidate
> > for this?
>
> Perhaps, instead, you could explain why we _should_ consider Guile:
> what it offers that the other systems that are out there, actively
> being developed, and are the targets of many, many hours of research
> figuring out how to put them together right, don't offer. Beyond, of
> course, the venerable names of the FSF and RMS.
i guess that's the point, isn't it. having the FSF involved
brings some unity and direction to scheme implementation.
you think this is a bad thing; i think it is a good thing.
> There are Scheme systems that already offer foreign function
> interfaces, macro systems, portability across numerous platforms,
> platform-independent GUI libraries, embeddable interpreters, object
> systems, module systems, type systems, programming environments,
> static debuggers, program steppers ... with solid research behind
> them, and often all in the same system. Why wait for Godot?
who's waiting? i'm using Guile every day ;^)
you are right that there are several powerful scheme systems already
available. the FSF decided to build on top of one of them, SCM.
would you have the same objections if the FSF decided to build
on top of MzScheme? i think not, from your comment above.
Guile brings the prospect of long-term improvement of a particular
scheme implementation. many people are working on the project, and
their goals are mostly to support practical programming rather than
programming language research. that is why people should consider
Guile.
-russ
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