On Tuesday, July 23, 2019 at 12:55:40 PM UTC-4, Greg Hendershott wrote:
>
> Although I'm still skeptical that changing the surface syntax will be a
> sufficiently big net gain, and ought to be the next, highest priority?
> I'm running with that idea for the following.
>
> It seems like there are at least two "flavors" or "strengths", of giving
> Racket a non-sexpr syntax someday:
>
> 1. The new syntax will be a choice, fully co-equal with sexprs. Both are
> "first class", "forever". Any great new Racket features work with
> either.
>
> 2. The new syntax will become the preferred syntax, used in
> documentation and advocacy. ("Change the culture" is the phrase I
> thought Matthew used initially -- but I welcome him
> clarifying/correcting/revising.) Sexprs and #lang racket will get a
> status that's not as weak as "deprecated", but not really as strong
> as co-equal with the new syntax.
>
Option #1 is the only viable option from a community perspective. And I
think it will demonstrate the value of language oriented programming more
clearly.
I chose Racket for many reasons, but one important reason was that the age
of the language allowed me to examine the history of how the community
operated over a *long* period of time to get an idea of what I might expect
in the future. I didn't even consider languages that I felt were too young.
If anything other than option #1 is our course of action, then any
(current, or hypothetical future) users would be right in assuming the
possibility that sometime later, the new official language might also be
deprecated for something very different than what they expect. This is how
*not* to build a community.
I'm sure people disagree with this line of reasoning, and I respect your
different perspective, but hopefully we can all at least agree that
expectation management is important, and that expectations a currently a
bit muddled.
If the core team and/or community wants something other than option #1, I
would much prefer to know sooner rather than later. It would make me sad,
disappointed, frustrated, etc., but I suppose I would then reluctantly take
a cue to consider Chez Scheme given it was chosen by Racket people I
respect to be their foundation, just as I considered (and eventually chose)
Racket, via PLT Scheme, when I discovered Paul Graham chose it for the
foundation of Arc (after he abandoned his language community).
Brian
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