Alan Bawden wrote: > Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:28:04 -0500 (EST) > From: laten...@iro.umontreal.ca > > Is the current authoritative Scheme Steering Committee charter > at http://www.r6rs.org/charter/charter-mar-2006.txt ? > > That's where the link on the www.r6rs.org home page points... Yes, that is > it. > > I wish the new Steering Committee will draw a more complete charter. I > think there should be more steps in the process for Scheme > standardization. > > Or maybe just different steps. > > For example, I think goals for the language should first be decided to > put some direction in the Scheme standardization. > > Do the goals belong in the charter itself? We had a list of goals in an > early version of the Charter, but we took them out after the discussion at > the 2003 meeting in Boston.
The charter linked to above contains a "Recommended Timeline" which includes the suggestion that "The Editors should produce a draft standard core Scheme, a draft module system, and a draft set of initial libraries". The module system, at least, was a specific goal. Of course you're right that any such details should probably be in a separate revision-specific document, so that the Charter wouldn't need revision each time around. However, it could make sense to have some goals that are longer-term than a single report, that help to drive decisions. Something of a roadmap. For example, one thing that came up occasionally in discussion amongst the editors was support for concurrency in some form. Concurrency support could conceivably be included in a future Report, and this prospect can affect the design of features even before concurrency is actually supported. Another such example is pattern matching: the design of a record system could be affected by the goal of supporting pattern matching in future. While any group of editors is likely to be aware of these things, it's worth committing them to writing, in the interests of better communication all around. Anton _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list r6rs-discuss@lists.r6rs.org http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
