Re: Duplication of effort.

From: Perry E. Metzger <perry_at_piermont.com>
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 15:35:45 -0400

Harvey J. Stein writes:
> "Perry E. Metzger" <perry_at_piermont.com> writes:
>
> > "Harvey J. Stein" writes:
> > > My question to this
> > > view is if this is the case then why are there so many different C
> > > compilers/Fortran compilers/...?
> >
> > 1) to some extent, there is only one C compiler left in the open
> > source community, and it is GCC.
>
> You mean egcs? :-)

egcs == gcc.

Mainline gcc development is dead. egcs is the same compiler under a
new name.

> > 2) C code from different compilers mix just fine. Scheme is so loosely
> > defined except at its very core that this isn't possible in our
> > world. Furthermore, things like foreign function interfaces and large
> > packages like the STk Tk functionality can't be ported easily.
>
> So, what's missing is a standard that's sufficiently rich to allow
> good work to be done in a C/unix/windows centric world. The issue
> isn't proliferation of incompatible implementations. The issue is
> sufficiently rich standards.

You'll never get a sufficiently rich standard.

> > > 3. Put your money where your mouth is.
> > >
> > > If you think it's a good idea to merge Scheme implementations, then do
> > > it! Why argue about it on the net? Or is the idea to try to convince
> > > developers to do the work for you?
> >
> > I could do a "merge" myself, but the result would be three schemes
> > instead of two. Without the cooperation of the STk and Guile
> > communities, what would the point be?
>
> May the best implementation win.

Do you care if people use scheme or not?

If the exercise here is just to have an elegant way of wasting time,
I'd prefer to be playing croquet. To me, the point of hacking on code
is to have people use it, not to find baroque ways of amusing myself.

Perry
Received on Tue Oct 06 1998 - 21:36:22 CEST