chicken-hackers
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[Chicken-hackers] Re: Debian Chicken blurb


From: Kon Lovett
Subject: [Chicken-hackers] Re: Debian Chicken blurb
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 17:14:54 -0800


<snip>

I notice that the file "control" says:

Description: Simple Scheme-to-C compiler - compiler
CHICKEN is a Scheme compiler which compiles a subset of R5RS into C.
It uses the ideas presented in Baker's paper "Cheney on the MTA", and
is small and easily extendable, although not a production quality or
high-performance Scheme system.


It is disparaging, isn't it.

Hardly "Simple".

Includes a "Scheme-to-C compiler", not is-a.

What does "small" mean?

The statement "compiles a subset of R5RS" is just wrong. It compiles Scheme.

The statement "subset of R5RS" is misleading but not wrong. I agree the exceptions are trivial, assuming "numbers" is installed.

"not ... production quality" for what? It implies "toy quality".

Well "high-performance" it isn't, but in the above context it implies "low performance".

As of Chicken 2.0 the above was way out of date. With 2.5 it is verging on libel.


I take issue with several of these statements. First, unless I'm very mistaken, I don't think billing Chicken as only implementing "a subset of R5RS" is fair. It may be strictly true, but it's also strictly true of almost every other Scheme out there. I'll let other people chime in on whether Chicken is "production quality" or not; I think it probably is for some purposes. I think to say it's "not a high performance Scheme system" is just plain out wrong. It's not the highest performing Scheme out there, but it is certainly performance oriented. Is this just outdated crud from some really old version of Chicken? I would like to see these negative statements go away.

Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
<snip>





reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]