Re: guile history: your input needed!

[Andy Wingo]

Hey Neil,

On Fri 21 Nov 2008 01:34, "Neil Jerram" <address@hidden> writes:

> [T]o be honest I'm not much bothered about Guile's history. How does
> it help us (Guile developers and users) to add this to the manual?

I think that the problem that history addresses is the definition of
Guile -- that is, who and what we are.

If you talk to other schemers, or search on the internet, the defintion
of Guile for them comes from moments in our past (the Tcl wars etc etc),
and some early incompatibilities with R4 (and later, R5).

I think that to describe the present without acknowledging the past is
to give license to those with other interests, or with outdated
knowledge, to define Guile's past as they choose, and thus in a way to
constrain its future.

> (And I'm especially bored of hearing about the old tcl war yet again...)

It would be wierd not to mention them, IMO. There's no need to dwell too
long, but the need for powerful languages that can bridge the gap
between extension of existing applications and a more fully dynamic
programming environment is still with us today.

> I hope this isn't too prickly

Not at all! I could be wrong on all of this of course. But everyone
likes a good yarn, and we have a nice one to spin.

Cheers,

Andy
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