Re: Libraries and repositories

[Michael Vanier <address@hidden>]

> Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 15:17:50 -0800 (PST)
> From: Paul Graham <paulgraham@yahoo.com>
> Cc: ll1-discuss@ai.mit.edu
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> Sender: owner-ll1-discuss@ai.mit.edu
> Precedence: bulk
> 
> Much as I would want to agree with an argument that praises
> Scheme and disses Java, I suspect that the real problem is
> that Scheme is (currently) ruled by a committee and Java
> isn't.  If the Scheme committee got together and blessed a
> huge collection of libraries as an official part of the 
> next version of the language, they would soon come included
> with anything that dared to call itself Scheme.  They're
> not likely to, though; look how long they dithered about
> macros, and what they ended up with.

You don't like define-syntax, syntax-rules, syntax-case et. al.?  They seem
very elegant and useful to me.  I don't think there's anything in the
standard prohibiting defmacro-style macros, and most schemes seem to offer
them. 

How many of the examples in On Lisp would be impossible to do with scheme's
"official" macros?  Is it because they're hygienic?


> The wind has shifted.  Languages have more in them, and change
> faster, than you can do with a committee.
> 

Agreed.

Mike