barnes@cadence.com (Tim Barnes) (06/27/91)
In a recent article David Gudeman writes:
Any language feature that is unpalatable to large numbers of people is
a misfeature. And calling it "relatively unimportant" isn't going to
make it any less important to the people who are bothered by it. If
you don't think a lot of people are seriously bothered by lisp syntax
then you are mistaken.
The CAD Framework Initiative is in the process of standardizing on
Scheme as an extension language for CAD system use. In deciding to use
Scheme, it was critical to the process that we separate the language
semantics from the syntax.
A proposal which did not state categorically that a "C-like or
shell-like" syntax overlay will be defined and made part of the standard
was shot down two months ago. Last week, after rewriting the proposal
to clearly state our committment to dealing with the syntax issue,
Scheme was approved by the Architecture Technical Subcommittee by 24
votes to none (2 abstentions recorded).
The reason for this was that there was clear agreement on the semantic
richness of Scheme, and clear agreement that the normal Scheme syntax
would be difficult to sell to the bulk of the user community. Hence our
compromise.
As the chairperson of the Extension Language Working Group, I am very
happy with this solution. Personally, I'm happy to write Lisp.
However, what I really want is the semantic richness of Scheme, coupled
with whatever it takes to make the language successful.
I believe that's what we're getting, and I think this is an important
point in the life of the Lisp family of languages, because in a sense it
brings them into the main stream. When Scheme implementations (with or
without alternate syntax) are widely available, providing extensibility
to interactive applications, the number of people writing Lisp, (whether
they realize it or not) will increase dramatically.
--
/ / Manager, Framework Technology - Cadence Design Systems
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/__ / / \/ \ /__/ /__/ / / / /__ ___/ barnes@cadence.com (408) 944 7222peters@yang.earlham.edu (06/28/91)
> Tim Barnes at barnes@cadence.com wrote: > The CAD Framework Initiative is in the process of standardizing on > Scheme as an extension language for CAD system use. In deciding to use > Scheme, it was critical to the process that we separate the language > semantics from the syntax. > > A proposal which did not state categorically that a "C-like or > shell-like" syntax overlay will be defined and made part of the standard > was shot down two months ago. Last week, after rewriting the proposal > to clearly state our committment to dealing with the syntax issue, > Scheme was approved by the Architecture Technical Subcommittee by 24 > votes to none (2 abstentions recorded). > they realize it or not) will increase dramatically. Tim, Does this mean that you are developing a C-like syntax for scheme? If so, will it be available only as a 'macro language' for CAD packages, or will it also stand alone? Could you post some of your syntax proposals for comment? (I'm very interested to see them.) I can imagine going so far in the C-like syntax direction that you won't any longer be working with an interpreted language. Are you proposing to go that far? Please tell us more. Thanks Peter ------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Suber 317/983-1214 Philosophy, Computer Science peters@earlham.bitnet Earlham College peters@yang.earlham.edu Richmond, Indiana 47374 ------------------------------------------------------------------