Compatibility with Common Lisp: A meta comment

[Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI.ARPA>]

Andy Cromarty comments that it is ``the very act of being concerned with
compatibility at all that is gratuitous.''

I regard it as lucky that this message only went to RRRS-authors, because
it represents a low point in political thinking. Although I am not an
active participant in the Scheme design, many of you know that I use
Scheme in my teaching, my research papers, and my research. When put on
the spot regarding the future of Lisp - in any forum - I point to Scheme
as the hope for the future.

However, I regard myself as a member of the Common Lisp community, and I
had a fair amount to do with its design and acceptance. When I read Andy's
message I felt insulted. Perhaps someone less sympathetic to the Scheme
movement would be completely turned away from Scheme by reading his
message.

If Andy wants to battle the dark forces, they are indeed lined up at the
perimeter. To the vast audience, Common Lisp and Scheme are
indistinguishable.  The alternative is C. If Lisp cannot make a go of it
because other languages are seen as `better,' there will be less interest
in learning Lisp, and fewer people will be able to see the beauty of
Scheme. The battle is to win people over to `lisp programming,' which in
its best clothes is Scheme programming.

To an outsider, a `gratuitious' difference between Common Lisp and Scheme
is seen as evidence that the Lisp world is too religious to understand
real-world concerns. Unless there is a compelling reason to vary from Common
Lisp, I think compatibility is wise.

The Common Lisp community has learned and is learning a lot about how
people are won over to a new standard, and this community has many members
who are Scheme lovers. Perhaps it is a smart move to avoid alienating
them with comments like Andy's? Perhaps the Scheme community would like to
enlist the aid of the large Common Lisp community in advocating Scheme?

Don't let anyone outside this list see Andy's message.

			-rpg-

ps. To be a pissant about it. I guess Andy feels that, because the goals of
Common Lisp were nearly the opposite of Scheme's, the goals of Scheme
are to be:

	non-common
	non-portable
	inconsistent
	inexpressive
	incompatible
	inefficient
	not powerful
	unstable

Common Lisp's goals were not bad. They were the stated ones, plus several
others: gain support among competing dialects, gain advocates from the
commercial Lisp programming world, and develop compromises among enemies. The
stated goals plus these three are such that we are lucky that the result
is as reasonable as it is.