Re: Scheme syntax vs. other languages

[Jonathan Wilkes]

> Message: 2

> Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 00:03:10 +0200
> From: David Kastrup <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Scheme syntax vs. other languages
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain
> 
> Jonathan Wilkes <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>>  This doesn't go at all toward one solution or the other, but it does
>>  strongly point to this being a dev issue and not a user issue.
> 
> It depends on whether you consider the distinction between "dev" and
> "user" to be branded on people's foreheads.  Then you can state 
> things
> like "to extend, you should be able to recompile", but even with the
> most caste-conscious division between devs and users, this does not work
> as a community concept: because then the devs will not be able to help
> individual users with code snippets, when the latter can't compile them.
> 
> In LilyPond, the Scheme reader and interpreter is just a # away.  The
> line between LilyPond users and people extending LilyPond with Scheme is
> much more fuzzy and gradual than the line between those extending
> LilyPond with Scheme and those doing it with C++.
> 
> Most of the proposals about juggling extension languages are focusing on
> the C++/Scheme border.  That's not the important one for the community
> aspect.  At least not its details, but rather how far away from the user
> you can push it by extending the reach of Scheme.  The important border
> is that between LilyPond and Scheme.  Here is where empowerment of the
> user happens.  Or not.

Can you explain a little about how that empowerment happens?