IEEE Scheme Standardization Meeting

[Chris Haynes <chaynes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>]

 	      IEEE Scheme Standardization Working Group

		       SUMMARY OF FIRST MEETING


The Working Group on Scheme (IEEE/MSC/P1178) met on July 27, 1988,
following the Lisp conference at Snowbird, Utah. There were 30
attendees, including several who are also members of X3J13 and
ISO/SC22/WG16.

The chair's introductory remarks included the main entries in the PAR
and the main features of the IEEE standardization process.  Will
Clinger reported on the Scheme Report Workshop of July 24th, including
proposed differences between the the ``Revised^3 Report on the
Algorithmic Language Scheme'', or R3RS for short, and the forthcoming
R4RS.

There was concern that a Scheme standard not disrupt ongoing research
on Scheme, with general agreement on the following points: (1) The
Scheme standard should encourage evolution of the language, including
alternate programming styles.  (2) The standard is incomplete, so
implementations are expected to extended the standard.  (3) Early
standardization of features should be avoided, so that research on
improved features is not curtailed.

David Bartley, Chris Hanson, and Jim Miller were elected to edit
the standard.

The main part of the meeting was general discussion, for the benefit
of the editors, of anticipated differences between the Scheme standard
and the R4RS.

An electronic newsgroup, based at MIT, will be established for
technical and administrative communication of the working group.
When it is established, its presence will be advertised on the 
scheme newsgroup with information on how to join the new newsgroup.
Transcripts of activity in this group will be periodically mailed to
interested parties, upon request to the chair, for the benefit of
those without network connections.  Full minutes of the meeting
will be posted to this newsgroup when it is created.

It was concluded that the next meeting should be in January or
February at a location and time to be determined by the chair, most
likely in Cambridge.

The working group anticipates the following time schedule: 6 months --
review of first draft of standard, 12 months -- send approved draft of
standard to MSC.

-- Chris Haynes (chaynes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu)