Is it time for a new scheme standard?  Is it time to make a break from
the ossified RnRS document?  Is it time to bring Scheme into the 21st
century?

Scheme has become very dated.  The RnRS series of documents are a
relic of a more dynamic past but are now little more than a fossil
record of its ever slowing development.  With each year that passes,
scheme becomes more irrelevant to the practical and academic software
development, education and research worlds.

So what should be done?  Fix the uncertainties, clear up the undefined
areas.  Don't be scared to admit weaknesses and mistakes in the
current standard.  Solicit help from the Common Lisp community and
draw upon their extensive practical experience.  Learn from the
Functional community and their many strong ideas.  And ask the
compiler vendors about practicalities.

Its time for a fresh look at scheme.  Its time to break away from the
RnRS and its brotherhood of old men in their isolated,
self-referential world.  Its time to reinvigorate the language.

  Yes!  This is good news.

| Solicit help from the Common Lisp community and draw upon their extensive
| practical experience.

  Please keep Scheme impractical to retain its spriit.

Anyone calling for injection of fresh ideas into the language is
attacked with a level of spite and religious vehemence rarely seen
outside of fundamentalist religious sects.

Rather than address the issues raised in the positing, you spent
considerable effort attacking me and others in your reply.  You
attacked other languages such as Lisp, C++ and Perl..  You attacked
the other programming communities as if they were the devils own.  I
can just imagine you frothing at the mouth, up on the pulpit declaring
that the evil sinners who do not follow the one true way of scheme
will rot in hell for all eternity.

Resisting the inevitable, sticking your head in the sand and yelling
obscenities at anyone and everyone who has the audacity to suggest
change is like pissing into an oncoming typhoon… you just end up with
wet pants, looking like a sad old man who has lost all bowel control.

Its time to reinvigorate scheme.  See you in hell.

...

-----------------------------------------------------------

  No, it is not.  It is time to leave Scheme behind.  It used to be a
  language that brought many new ideas into _one_ language, but all of the
  good ideas have been picked up by other, better languages.  Common Lisp,
  Perl, Python, Ruby, and Java have all benefited from the little group of
  impractical purists who designed this minimalistic language experiment.
  Look, Tengwar is more widely used than Scheme these days.  The features
  unique to Scheme today are those that are universally considered bad
  ideas.  Worse: Perl, Python, Ruby, and Java have more of the Lisp nature
  than Scheme does, whether they admit to it or not, and better developed
  and more widely used to boot.  It is time to close the book on Scheme and
  let it wither and die, which it will if you leave the kind of people you
  have seen respond to you alone to destroy it from within.

  If you still want a functional programming paradigm, there are lots and
  lots of more recent academic experiments that should be at least as
  useless as Scheme for real work, but which could be a little harder to
  teach, since they actually try to do _something_ and are not just trying
  to make a language optimized for reimplementation of itself by students.

  If you are not welcome in the Scheme community, take a hint: Leave.  They
  do not even need to be provoked to attack individual people, as you have
  seen, so they are clearly bad people.  Do not try to change bad people:
  It makes the bad people worse and wastes your time (that is the lesson I
  learned from trying to deal with Scheme freaks as if they were people).
  Try instead to find good people who welcome the ability to think.

  Ask yourself what you actually _like_ in Scheme.  Chances are you can get
  it, better implemented and better understood, in any number of other
  languages.  The only thing you probably cannot get in other languages is
  a full implementation of the language itself done as a student project.
  If you want that, just create your own language like everybody else who
  has ever actually tried to used Scheme does, anyway.

  I am glad you asked.  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,
  has premiered recently all over the world.  Tengwar is a writing system
  devised by J.R.R.Tolkien in this monumental work.  Millions of people all
  over the world have taken a renewed interest in his works, including his
  new languages and writing systems, because of this movie.  I venture a
  guess that more people were fluent in Tengwar than in Scheme before this
  movie was announced, as well, but I am certain that the number has
  exceeded Scheme fluency because of the movie.  I certainly reread LotR
  and took up my old calligraphic Tengwar skills in joyful anticipation of
  the movie, and I did not reread RnRS nor take up my old Scheme skills in
  anticipation of, um, anything.  Q.E.D.

  Note: Despite the fictitious "please", I consider the brevity, style, and
  substance of your request to communicate hostility.  Requests for proof
  or references are never constructive on USENET, just mere tactics in a
  rhetorical game.  I have responded with ridicule.  Please be pleased with
  the results.  Thank you and goodbye.

  No.  That would be a rather spectacularly invalid conclusion.  Since you
  obviously have no idea what Tengwar is, suffice to say that a relatively
  small group of people have adopted this artificial writing system from
  J.R.R.Tolkien in order to enjoy communication within the secluded world
  of ardent fans.  Some therefore consider it a symptom of a cult.  It was
  the likeness of ardent fans in small number who keep the rest of the
  world out through a measure of intended obscurity that prompted the
  comparison, not the mere quantity of weirdos.  Please confirm that you
  have been enlightened by responding with another hostile grunt.

| Wonders will never cease....

  That easily happens when you abandon rationality.  Enjoy your wonders.

* Erik Naggum

  As a _consequence_?  No.  Logic and rational thought is not quite your
  thing, is it?  But since your emotive invective is conditional upon your
  false premise, I guess I am in the clear.  Whew!  That was _so_ close.

| Go take your medication.

  I assume you have extensive experience with medication helping your own
  behavioral problems since you think this silliness is an insult, but it
  just goes to show that once again, the aggressiveness of Israel gets
  blamed on those attacked.  History is indeed repeating itself.

Could you stop cross posting, though? We like to concern ourselves with
_relevant_ languages over here. LOL.

------------ cut here ----------

but you wrote,

------------ cut here ----------

Why could you claim that "the features unique to Scheme today
are those that are universally considered bad ideas." without
any proof??  Especially, why could you use the word "universally"??

Ah... maybe because you are the only person who lives in
"your universe"?

As my experience should show, the Scheme community is very welcoming to
newcomers and it is possible to use Scheme for modern applications.  If you
don't want to help it, that's your problem.  It is small, clean and, yes,
relevant to today's work.

You are just a common troll and I'm sorry I replied, but some things
couldn't be left unsaid.  Goodbye.

{ much spectacularly irrelevant , incoherent and grammatically
challenged psychotic ravings by Eroc  Nogumshoe deleted }

---------------------------------------------

  It was one of your own (David Rush) who called on me, blaming me for his
  serious coping problems when that New Scheme fellow posted some heretical
  comments that could threaten to undo the universe as he knew it.  I am
  sure that the Scheme religion needs a Devil figure and that you guys are
  so irrational as to blame the Devil when you need to explain some of the
  otherwise _inexplicable_ evil that happens to you (like reality invading
  your nice little theories), but if I wanted to undo the Scheme community,
  nobody would know it had even existed, OK?  Such are my evil powers.  I
  _let_ you insufferable little freaks continue to have your community,
  because you do less harm believing in and being preoccupied with Scheme
  than if you were roaming free.  Or perhaps this Devil imagery that you
  guys seem to need is a bit stale and idiotic?

| Are you still sore that Scheme is installed on far more computers than
| oxymoronically-named "Common" Lisp?

  No, never was.  On the contrary, I am quite happy that all those who
  install Common Lisp systems actually use them productively.

  Have you thought about how _necessary_ it is for you Scheme freaks to be
  hostile to those who do not agree with you?  E.g., where _did_ the stupid
  need to attack Common Lisp now come from?  So immature and vindictive!

  On the other hand, if you suffer form Perl envy, I am sure that it is
  natural to think that other language communities must suffer from similar
  problems, but so far, we have had a large number of Scheme freaks invade
  Common Lisp fora to tell us how superior Scheme is, while no Common Lisp
  programmers invade Scheme camps to tell you how good Common Lisp is.  Why
  is this?  Well, we know that Common Lisp is better than Scheme, and so do
  you, so there is no need to repeat the obvious, but any clueless Scheme
  freak who feels the urge to rebel against authority and common sense must
  try to provoke those better than him.  That is why you had to include
  that stupid attack on Common Lisp, too.  So immature.  So Scheme.

  Incidentally, are you still raping preschool children?  Scheme is the
  favorite language of pedophiles, who love the pure and small, you know.

| The Scheme community is a warm and welcoming place compared to the Common
| Lisp one, I think.

  Of course you think so.  But let us ask this New Scheme fellow, or any of
  the other people that Scheme freaks routinely attack on no basis at all.
  Why did your David Rush need to attack me this time, for instance?  Why
  did you have to attack Common Lisp?  I have not done anything to you
  insane fucks, but you nutballs need no provocation to attack me.  Why?
  Do you think normal, sane people behave the way you do?

  Anyone can see that a community of people who condone and support attacks
  on others behind their back is neither warm nor welcome, no matter how
  much you wish to be and lie that you are.  Most religions have been warm
  and welcome to those likely to be duped by their gospel, and extremely
  hostile to those who would be a threat to them.  Which one of them would
  say that some _other_ religion is more warm and welcoming than they are?
  So this vacuous phrase is sheer marketing.  When you need to engage in
  such marketing, you must know that you have a shitty product that nobody
  would buy if they knew the truth about it.  What a scheme!

| The the open, academic-yet-practical, friendly spirit of Lisp lives on in
| comp.lang.scheme and numerous general lisp mailing lists.

  Of course you believe this.  You have chased away every free-thinking
  person who has ever discarded Scheme and you display _such_ hatred of
  non-believers that you are like the biological end result of in-breeding.
  The people who come to you in the first place are already converts and
  are unlikely to question the gospel.  Those who do not like Scheme do not
  exactly have to deal with you -- which is also why you Scheme freaks have
  to come to Common Lisp groups and fora and make a stupid scene.

| We just don't like anonymous posters saying that we got it all wrong.

  Are you sure that is what he said?  Are you sure that those who do not
  believe in the Scheme religion would react the same way?  Have you found
  a rational person you could ask how would react to that article?  I would
  bet that not a single rational person would say that you got it all wrong
  -- on the contrary, a reasonable reading is you got it right _eons_ ago,
  but now you need do something more to keep doing the right thing.  Of
  course, a card-carrying Scheme nutcase would feel all defensive only if
  he _knew_ that his favorite religion was all wrong, and therefore needs
  to stop people from figuring it out.  That is how organized religions
  have reacted to "heretics" for ages.

  It is quite amazing how fanatic and stupid you Scheme freaks are.  Of
  course you think you are friendly -- you only have people around you who
  are in complete agreement on something _really_ stupid, and _anybody_ is
  all friendly when they are never challenged by disagreement of any kind,
  but challenge you guys and one gets to see what you are really made of:
  Just watch David Rush in action, or your opening line.  Just look at how
  you treat people who disagree with your beliefs!

  But trust me on this: Unless that psychotic David Rush character had been
  so amazingly stupid as to blame me for this, _and_ that New Scheme fellow
  had cross-posted it back to the newsgroups that coward little shit David
  Rush did _not_ post to, none of this would have happened.  Perhaps you
  friendly Scheme freaks need to purge your own evils and excommunicate the
  worst among your own?  I would have started by frying David Rushs' balls.

  It is increasingly obvious that Scheme is a mental disease, particularly
  since you mental cases always make a point out of attacking non-believers
  out of the blue.  They do not even have to be posting to your newsgroup!

  Could you explain what "oxymoronically-named "Common" Lisp?" is if not an
  attack?  Do you think your immature and vindictive "opinions" do _not_
  constitute an attack?  If so, I understand better what you mean by "warm
  and welcoming".

  And just _why_ do you attack me?  You are just warm and welcoming, right?

| Maybe you wish to make general Lisp fora "pure" and filled only with your
| One True Lisp?

  No, that would be the Scheme way of dealing with diversity of opinion, as
  we have seen from you guys already.  This is one of the really important
  differences between Common Lisp and Scheme.  It is not suprising that you
  do not know this, considering your "warm and welcoming" behavior.

  By the way, you are probably right.  The Scheme community is certainly
  more "warm and welcoming" than the Common Lisp community."

| I've snipped the rest of your content-free post.

  So you lack the courage to deal with all forms of counter-information.