[R6RS] Re: Less verbose type definition form

[feeley at iro.umontreal.ca]

>
> "Manuel Serrano" <Manuel.Serrano at sophia.inria.fr> writes:
>
>> I would have some comments on this proposal. In particular, I don't
>> feel comfortable with the initialization stuff (first extension) but
>> before discussing this in detail, I will wait other comments to see
>> where we are going with now two concurrent proposals...
>
> What is frustrating to me in this discussion is that we're back to
> to the state of things before the meeting:
>
> We agreed that we'd focus on satisfying requirements rather than try
> to incorporate everyone's neat ideas.  We formulated requirements for
> the records facility at the meeting, and charged somebody with
> producing a proposal that would do that, based on what Kent presented
> at the meeting itself.
>
> "Verbosity" (or "succinctness") wasn't on the list of what we wrote up
> for the records---as far as I can remember, nobody even suggested that
> it be put on there.

"Elegance" was mentionned more than once at the Boston meeting as a
"requirement" but it was not written down as a formal requirement because
it is implicit in the design process.  Truly I think elegance is such a
strong requirement in all that we do that it is a design principle.

I'm sorry, but if it takes more than one line of code to define a 2D point
record, then the record system is not elegant.  Moreover, I view
"extensibility" as such a strong requirement that it is a design
principle.  This is why I believe a syntax based on keywords, like the one
I proposed, is necessary.

What I don't understand about your comment is that you say we will never
agree on the syntax so any syntax will have to do and then when I say
syntax is very important and the syntax I propose is better (succinctness,
readability and extensibility while having the same expressive power as
your proposal) you seem to not want to discuss it.  I just don't
understand what the problem is.

Marc