Scheme New Year

[Jonathan A Rees <JAR@MIT-MC>]

    Date: 21 Dec 1984 13:31:25-EST
    From: linus!ramsdell at Mitre-Bedford

    ... My only worry about Scheme on the Mac is that
    Expertelligence does not have the expertise to make a quality
    product.

Au contraire - I was impressed with the Expertelligence Scheme project;
they seem to be doing a competent job given the constraints (PC reality)
they're working under.  For example, they had the foresight to do a
compiler-based system from the outset, rather than succumb to the
temptation of doing an interpreter first, with a compiler grafted on
later as an afterthought, as has happened in so many Lisp systems out
there.  In fact, when I saw the demo, there was no interpreter at all;
expressions typed at the read-eval-print loop got compiled to 68000
code, which was then executed.  They're serious about doing a fast
system.  There are limits to what you can do on a Mac, but I think this
Scheme might turn out pretty well.