Can we standardize Scheme without killing it?

[James Miller <jmiller%mephi%brandeis.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET>]

I haven't entered the fray yet, and I don't want to do anything about
heating up the debate.  My personal opinion is that I would prefer not
to standardize, but I suspect that we will have to do so for a large
variety of reasons.

I prefer the IEEE option as I understand it now over the ANSI option,
but I am afraid that costs *ARE* the single determining feature in my
ability to work on this.  They are one reason I prefer IEEE.  I'd hate
to get left out, but I am a new faculty member (first year) and have
no way to afford travel expenses.  Thus, the MITRE meeting has
significant appeal to me; but that's very selfish.

One final note: I'm scared by Don Oxley's message regarding a
diversion from the minimalist standard.  I'm not very much of a
minimalist myself, but I see absolutely no hope of getting a standard
we will all like if we don't strongly adopt a Steele-like stance
against new features.  I suggest that we take a fairly strong line
that any proposed extension which can be implemented using Yellow
Pages style be kept out of the standard entirely.  I also believe that
we *have* to finally agree on macros to make this philosophy reaonably
workable.

--Jim