Being at Indiana University, which is an old time Scheme hub, every now and then I am exposed to some of the turmoil in Scheme community over the new Scheme standard, R6RS. Essentially the community is having a hard time agreeing on what should be in the new standard. There are some very smart, very accomplished, very opinionated people who belong to this community and the language spec is a bit of a battle ground, from what I hear. (As are all language specs... some battles, I suspect, lack the intellectual quality of this one)

I am not very much of a Schemer myself, I sometimes indulge the language on a need basis. I hear from some my more intensely-Scheme-happy friends about some of the latest news at Scheme-spec land. One of the names that was mentioned in recent times is that of Will Clinger. Apparently, Will Clinger set into motion some of the discussion that formed the origins of the new standard, called R6RS (that is short for Revision-6 of the Report on Scheme - or something approximately like that). Over the years the formalization of R6RS has had its ups and downs. Of the many differences of opinion on the standard, some resulted in the formation of a group that decided to create an alternate standard. This group is called SchemePunks, apparently headed by Will Clinger himself (*). While this is mostly hearsay, it seemed amusing none the less. I also, sort of, like Scheme - so I listen in when one of these conversations come up.

Today I was searching for something and I came across the SchemePunks webpage/wiki. I didn't realize they had a webpage. Better yet no one told me that it written in excellent Hitchiker style! I read this and burst out laughing - what a way to motivate a language standard! I don't know any of the design decisions they have made, but the introduction here is sheer genius. Despite not being a Schemer, I am almost tempted to join in. :)

From the SchemePunks webpage:

On 29 August 2007, the Revised Revised Revised Revised Revised Revised Report on Scheme was ratified by the Steering Committee. This has made a lot of people quite angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Many programmers believe that it was created by some sort of community process, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Standard was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. This theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI, and so, standards being the puzzling documents that they are, other standards are being designed. And this wiki, which is called SchemePunks, is definitely not part of the Scheme Underground, even if it is, which it isn't.

Which is very odd, because without that fairly simple piece of knowledge, nothing that is written on here could possibly make the slightest bit of sense. We hope to develop an alternative specification for the Family of Programming Languages known as Scheme. Watch this space.

Being somewhat bowled over, I had to look for the man - William Clinger, Professor of Computer Science, Northeastern U.
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/will/Personal/western1.jpg

:)

I wish more languages where designed in H2G2 spirit. Aah!

From his webpage:
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/will/R6RS/essay.txt

More than twenty years have passed since I wrote this [1]:

Programming languages should be designed not by piling feature on top of feature, but by removing the weaknesses and restrictions that make additional features appear necessary. Scheme demonstrates that a very small number of rules for forming expressions, with no restrictions on how they are composed, suffice to form a practical and efficient programming language that is flexible enough to support most of the major programming paradigms in use today.

I have to say, I am compelled to agree, though I wonder how of it applies to the Scheme of today. The essay is worth a read, even if you are not a Schemer. You can skip over the Scheme specific parts and just look at the language design philosophy.