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Re: Draft SRFI update - initial indent with "!"

This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 110 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 110 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.



David Vanderson:
> Sorry, but what was the previous rationale to not allowing initial "!" indents?

Primarily for error detection; it wasn't legal before.

One of purposes of "initial indent" mode is to increase backwards-compatibility.
Sweet-expressions are, in general, really backwards-compatible; but
if you put end one s-expression on a line, and then start another on the same line,
then it doesn't work.  E.G.:
 (define x 1) (define y 2)
becomes, when read as an s-expression:
 ((define x 1) (define y 2))

In practice, that sort of formatting seems to be really rare.
But if someone does that sort of weird formatting, there's a fair chance
that they inserted spaces in front (or can be convinced to add them),
maximizing backwards compatibility.
Since "!" wouldn't happen with traditional s-expressions,
it seemed reasonable to make it an error.

But it's nice to be able to talk about/illustrate initial indents
in ways that make it obvious, or don't get removed by
transports that gobble initial whitespace.  Hmmm... we have a
solution to that already!!!  Let's use it.

--- David A. Wheeler