Flaws of form

[Norman Adams <adams%tekchips.tek.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>]

I would prefer to see no dedication in preference to making the dedication
serious.  I think a serious dedication would read as insincere because
the Scheme report is an obvious parody of the Algol 60 report.

As much for my asusement as for anything else, I wrote this explanation:

The Algol 60 report is gravely earnest.  Among its many firsts, Algol was
first to use a grammar-like construct to define its syntax.  The first
report -- "Preliminary report - International Algebraic Language" -- as
well as the revision, were published as cover stories in the
@i(Communucations of the ACM) (*).  The report was the culmination of an
international effort, followed with international attention.  In the style
of world war commentary, the reader learns of the Zurich meeting, the Paris
meeting, and of the seven European representatives who held a final
prepatory meeting in Mainz in December 1959.  And let us not forget the
seven American representatives with a similar quest, in Boston that same
year.  We are spared the details of the lunch meats; judged, with Ph.D.
precision I am certain, to be expendable from the accounting.  In each
re-reading, I look (in vain) for the mention of Teller and Oppenheimer;
surely they were involved too.  It is in this intensely sober context that
we read the full page eulogy of William Turanski (**), who died after being
struck by a car the day before the 1960 conference in Paris.  

(*)  CACM v1 #12, 1958; CACM v6 #1, 1963
(**) CACM v3 #5, 1960, p 298

Scheme is fun and happy, and a bit quirky -- or are CDR and CAR and so many
relatives the ideal names for those procedures?  Scheme is as serious as
LAMBDA, but as casual as CAR.  Alas, what has become of dear PROGN?  The
names are arbitrary and incidental; CAR and CDR remind us.  Scheme is as
much an approach as a detailed concrete specification.  But to be taken
seriously, for Scheme to be widely used, we must have the details and
concretions; they are essential but unimportant.

The Algol 60 report is almost ludicrous in its sobriety.  If we use the form
of Algol 60 to present happy little Scheme, we cannot avoid the parody;
try as we might.

Still, I think there is good reason to use the form.  Presenting Scheme in
the form of the Algol 60 report may capture the attention of those who
clump together and ignore all Lisp-like languages because the culture is so
different from what they know.  The contrast with @i(Chine Nual) and
@i(CLtL) is important.  Perhaps Lisp can be other than a bag of features of
a metastasizing runtime environment.  Perhaps it can even be described in
the style of the day!  

Following the model of Algol 60 exactly points out that the form of
description is itself an arbitrary convention; and the point is made in
perfect Scheme style.  Just as Scheme can provide the "their" control
constructs, it can be described in "their" form.  

The parody pokes fun at all those essential but unimportant details.  
It is the perfect couch for Scheme.

So for all this, I find a serious dedication inappropriate.  Algol 60's
dedication was grave; to an Algol soldier, killed in his prime (he was 35).
Scheme's dedication should be to something unimportant.  "Dedicated to the
memory of dynamic binding.", as Jonathan once suggested, fits well.  It
seems to me so much better than to try to be as somber and important as
Algol 60.  I think we would look foolish in the attempt.  

-Norman
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