It's all about being right: lessons from the R⁶RS process

In the Revised Reports on Scheme up to R⁵RS, the language could only be changed by unanimous consent. It has been widely believed that any language changes made in this way would clearly be the right thing. Arguably, this process reached its limits with the Revised⁵ Report on Scheme: Crucial language additions such as modules, records and exceptions had little chance of reaching unanimous consent, no matter what the specific design. While the editors of the Revised⁶ Report no longer follow this rule, standardization is still driven by a strong desire to do the right thing. Continuing the tradition of Lisp culture, reaching this goal has been difficult and elusive, as the participants hold different and strongly opinionated ideas about what the right thing is. In the talk, I will review the R⁶RS process, and attempt to show that R⁶RS is indeed the right thing for Scheme.