According to the article: thanks to a grant from the NLnet foundation under the NGI Zero Core program, Pre-Scheme can continue to be developed. It's supposed to be a C alternative. Currently, it compiles to C, has a Hindley Milner type system, macros, and it can run in a Scheme REPL. And they have a roadmap of features now.
This is pretty cool, and it's generous of them to grant them funding, but (and I'm not trying to be rude) I wonder why they chose to give a grant for Pre-Scheme specifically. This seems only loosely related to the goals of the NGI Zero Core program (linked in the article):
"The next generation internet initiative envisions the information age will be an era that brings out the best in all of us. We want to enable human potential, mobility and creativity at the largest possible scale – while dealing responsibly with our natural resources. In order to preserve and expand the European way of life, the programme helps shape a value-centric, human and inclusive Internet for all."
...
"We want a more resilient, trustworthy and open internet. We want to empower end-users. Given the speed at which the 'twin transition' is taking place, we need a greener internet and more sustainable services sooner rather than later. Neither will happen at global scale without protocol evolution, which — as the case of three decades of IPv6 introduction demonstrates — is extremely challenging. NGI0 Core is designed to push beyond the status quo and create a virtuous cycle of innovation through free and open source software, libre hardware and open standards. If we want everyone to use and benefit from the internet to its full potential without holding back, the internet must be built on strong and transparent technologies that allow for permissionless innovation and are equally accessible to all."
Pre-Scheme is one more path to moving away from low level programming being done on top of directly programmed C for one thing, and the revival effort directly ties in by moving Pre-Scheme to be on top of r7rs, an open standard. This opens up Pre-Scheme to a variety of other ecosystems that NLnet already invests in, including Guix, Mes, and Guile, which have put a lot of efforts into secure and highly reproducible (and indeed bootstrappable) computing. There's definitely some ties in with security and security-oriented communities NLnet already funds, and this project directly works towards moving towards a more standardized approach, leading to hopefully broader adoption.
Another way to look at it is a long shot on a new higher level language to entice the folks currently reaching for Java, Python, or other runtime interpreters. An easy and safe language that shifts more work to compile time and offers high performance with ergonomic use will use less power, reduce the education requirements to writing fast code, and potentially change the world like another fast memory safe language governments are increasingly endorsing. Or if nothing else it may serve as a language for interpreters of those languages, or to make extensions to them more ergonomic. With enough scale the improvements can come very incrementally.
This is pretty cool, and it's generous of them to grant them funding, but (and I'm not trying to be rude) I wonder why they chose to give a grant for Pre-Scheme specifically. This seems only loosely related to the goals of the NGI Zero Core program (linked in the article):
"The next generation internet initiative envisions the information age will be an era that brings out the best in all of us. We want to enable human potential, mobility and creativity at the largest possible scale – while dealing responsibly with our natural resources. In order to preserve and expand the European way of life, the programme helps shape a value-centric, human and inclusive Internet for all."
...
"We want a more resilient, trustworthy and open internet. We want to empower end-users. Given the speed at which the 'twin transition' is taking place, we need a greener internet and more sustainable services sooner rather than later. Neither will happen at global scale without protocol evolution, which — as the case of three decades of IPv6 introduction demonstrates — is extremely challenging. NGI0 Core is designed to push beyond the status quo and create a virtuous cycle of innovation through free and open source software, libre hardware and open standards. If we want everyone to use and benefit from the internet to its full potential without holding back, the internet must be built on strong and transparent technologies that allow for permissionless innovation and are equally accessible to all."