chaynes@IUVAX.CS.INDIANA.EDU (Chris Haynes) (04/08/88)
On March 25, 1988, a majority of the authors of the "Revised^3 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme" (SIGPLAN Notices, December, 1986), together with representatives of IEEE and X3 standardization committees, met at Indiana University as a study group to consider initiation of a formal standardization effort for Scheme. It was concluded that a formal standard was desirable to improve code portability, publication uniformity, and language visibility. It was recommended that a PAR be submitted through the IEEE Microprocessor Standards Committee to initiate the formal standardization effort and establish a Scheme Working Group. Christopher Haynes and William Clinger were nominated for Chair and Vice-Chair of the Working Group, respectively. It is expected that the Working Group will meet approximately twice a year, with the first meeting to be held on July 27, 1988, following the ACM Conference on Lisp and Functional Programming at Snowbird, Utah. The study group felt strongly that the informal group that produced the existing Scheme reports should continue its language design work by holding workshops and publishing further revised reports. While these reports are likely to form the basis for future revisions of the standard, they will probably be less conservative than is appropriate for a standards document and may, for example, include experimental features that should be withheld from standardization. The study group also concluded that Scheme standardization does not conflict in any way with existing or contemplated standardization efforts for other members of the Lisp family, such as X3J13. It was recommended that liaison be maintained with these efforts, and in particular that the views of the Scheme community be taken into account by the ANSI delegate to the ISO ISLISP standardization meetings, and that an observer from the Scheme community be present at such meetings if possible. -- Chris Haynes chaynes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu