Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!cadence!cadence!barnes From: barnes@cadence.com (Tim Barnes) Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme Subject: scheme, standards, syntax and CFI Message-ID: Date: 26 Jun 91 21:28:45 GMT References: <4582@optima.cs.arizona.edu> Sender: usenet@cadence.com (USENET News) Organization: Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Lines: 41 In-Reply-To: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu's message of 26 Jun 91 07:29:17 GMT In a recent article David Gudeman writes: Any language feature that is unpalatable to large numbers of people is a misfeature. And calling it "relatively unimportant" isn't going to make it any less important to the people who are bothered by it. If you don't think a lot of people are seriously bothered by lisp syntax then you are mistaken. The CAD Framework Initiative is in the process of standardizing on Scheme as an extension language for CAD system use. In deciding to use Scheme, it was critical to the process that we separate the language semantics from the syntax. A proposal which did not state categorically that a "C-like or shell-like" syntax overlay will be defined and made part of the standard was shot down two months ago. Last week, after rewriting the proposal to clearly state our committment to dealing with the syntax issue, Scheme was approved by the Architecture Technical Subcommittee by 24 votes to none (2 abstentions recorded). The reason for this was that there was clear agreement on the semantic richness of Scheme, and clear agreement that the normal Scheme syntax would be difficult to sell to the bulk of the user community. Hence our compromise. As the chairperson of the Extension Language Working Group, I am very happy with this solution. Personally, I'm happy to write Lisp. However, what I really want is the semantic richness of Scheme, coupled with whatever it takes to make the language successful. I believe that's what we're getting, and I think this is an important point in the life of the Lisp family of languages, because in a sense it brings them into the main stream. When Scheme implementations (with or without alternate syntax) are widely available, providing extensibility to interactive applications, the number of people writing Lisp, (whether they realize it or not) will increase dramatically. -- / / Manager, Framework Technology - Cadence Design Systems -/- o /__ ___ __ ___ ___ ___ 555 River Oaks Parkway / / /\ /\ / / ___/ / / / /__/ /__ San Jose, CA 95134 /__ / / \/ \ /__/ /__/ / / / /__ ___/ barnes@cadence.com (408) 944 7222