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by CatDancer 6230 days ago
For me it's a cost/benefit analysis. Programming in MzScheme or Arc has a cost to me in that the libraries I typically use for my projects are mostly available in other languages, so they are harder to get to. I may decide to program in a language despite such a cost if it has other benefits for me that I find outweigh the cost. While I liked MzScheme, I didn't find its benefit to me great enough to outweigh the inconvenience of the library issue. The scale tipped in the other direction for me with Arc, where I'm happy enough with the benefits I find in Arc that they outweigh the other disadvantages for me.
1 comments
mahmud 6230 days ago
Your article doesn't list any of the library features that tipped the scale in favor of Arc. It's unfair to the MzScheme developers and users to dismiss their platform without telling them what's lacking. Please revise the article and flesh it further, if you have the time, because as it stands, it doesn't stand well under scrutiny.

Public technical rationales aught to be a little more than "just cuz" and personal preference. If you wanted a discussion that is ..

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anc2020 6230 days ago
I'm sorry but this seems an aggressive comment to me. CatDancer did mention the preference of simple macros over MzScheme's more complicated hygienic macros. Beyond that, Arc is different from Scheme and everyone knows it. The differences are documented and they are the reason why Arc is not Scheme. You do not have to challenge the piece just because you don't particularly like the changes Arc made in comparison to Scheme.
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CatDancer 6230 days ago
Your article doesn't list any of the library features that tipped the scale in favor of Arc.

The features of Arc are well described in the Arc tutorial, http://ycombinator.com/arc/tut.txt would you recommend that I include a link to that?

it doesn't stand well under scrutiny ... public technical rationales aught to be a little more than ...

Well, I had posted it to the Arc forum, where people are already familiar with Arc. I expect that your criticism is valid if it had been intended to be a technical article.

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