Re: Libraries and repositories

[Tim Hickey <address@hidden>]

On Thu, 20 Dec 2001, Paul Prescod wrote:

> If R5RS Scheme had a sister standard that specified as large and rich a
> standard library as Java's API, it would not matter that there were a
> hundred implementations. They would be alike in every way that mattered.

This argument suggests a bright future for Java Scheme's (or indeed
any well-defined small scripting language with transparent access to Java,
e.g. Jscheme, Jython, JRuby?, JPerl?, JDylan?, JSmalltalk?) Since
such languages can reliably make use of Sun's extensive standard libraries
(and extensions...)

It seems that the standard libaries aspect of successful languages might
be made moot if there was an efficient way of accessing the Java libraries
in a language independent way. Something like the C#/.net approach but
with platform independence. Conceptually, languages and libraries seem
somewhat orthogonal.

---Tim---