At 10:16 AM 8/18/2007, Marc Feeley wrote:
On 18-Aug-07, at 10:39 AM, Harold Ancell wrote:
We also need a name for what we've got, the R5RS based implementations that will at most have a R6RS compatibility package (the route Larceny and Gauche will be taking).
I've been using "UncommonScheme" as a working name; I don't dislike Common Lisp per se, but there's reasons I switched....
The name that comes to mind first is "Schemer". That's the original name for the Scheme language.
Yeah! The sequence was:
Planner and Micro Planner (the latter used by SHRDLU) Conniver ("Don't Plan, Connive!") Schemer ("Don't Connive, Scheme!")
All were Sussman (and others) and later Steele trying to interpret and implement Carl Hewitt's ideas.
The "R" at the end was dropped because the file system was limited to 6 characters.
Yep, ITS used the 6 bit character set of the PDP-6/10s (6 * 6 = 36 bit word size; DEC consulted with the AI Lab about the architecture and instruction set, so two 18 bit word addressed pointers (1 Grand ^_^ one megabyte of address space) made one word, these were the first "Lisp Machines"). ITS had a DIRNAM; FLNAME VERSIN scheme (so to speak), the last was normally a number auto-incremented by EMACS.
So Schemer was truncated to SCHEME or now Scheme.
Schemer, yes, let's reach back to our roots.
No need to gratuitously insult Common Lisp and its users, it has its place.
I also like the ring of "The Language Formerly Known As Scheme" (perhaps because I love Monty Python).
As do I. And if any group of people should provide the name for this ... silly walk? ... it should be them.
And there's also the artist formerly known as "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince" (when he wanted to get out of a recording label contract), which will comer to mind to a set of music fans, and was forced by something both dire and silly.
- Harold