[R6RS] Split the report?

Michael Sperber sperber at informatik.uni-tuebingen.de
Sun Nov 5 12:39:46 EST 2006


I'd appreciate if we could have a bit of discussion on splitting the
report on the list.  Most people in my vicinity have expressed a
strong preference for a split, specifically Jonathan Rees, Richard
Kelsey, Martin Gasbichler.  On the discuss list, John Cowan has also
expressed a wish for this.  On LtU, I've seen Barak Pearlmutter write
to the same effect.  My impression is that may others feel the same
way.  Except for Kent, I've had nobody really a express a wish to keep
the document as one.

I understand this is mostly a PR move, but IMHO it's an important one,
because the sheer size of the language report is/was one of the more
frequently repeated arguments in favor of Scheme.  It also seems,
despite our efforts to indicate the division in the current form, a
number of people haven't noticed or remain unconvinced that there's
really two parts.

Kent has raised number of issues:

- A unified index would be nice.
  I agree, but this seems mostly a technical issue.  I'd see to it.

- Implementors might implement only the "language" report, but not the
  "libraries" report.
  I think we can make it sufficiently clear that they're both part of
  the "standard."  I'd personally suggest we keep the header material
  and just add subtitles like:

  R6RS - Base language
  R6RS - Libraries

  I think implementors who make that choice will either have a a
  reason sufficiently good so they'd make it even if there were only
  one document.

Anyways, could we do a straw poll to figure out how the editors feel
at this time?  More argument on this would also be welcome.

-- 
Cheers =8-} Mike
Friede, Völkerverständigung und überhaupt blabla



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