Should Users Make Language Design Decisions?
The latest Scheme proposal, R6RS, has generated a fair amount of controversy. I believe a mistake was made in letting people have the final vote on language features who were not experts in language design and implementation.
To understand why this approach is flawed, consider if you were designing a new car and took a random selection of car drivers and asked them:
- How fast should it go?
- What shape should it be?
- What size should it be?
- What mileage should it have?
- What features should it have?
Many people have an opinion, based on various degrees of knowledge and experience, but only car designers really understand everything how each design decision affects other aspects of the design. Of course you should always get user input during the design process. Just don’t let them in the room when you make your final decision. Otherwise you could end up with a “Homer“.