Re: strings draft

[Tom Lord <lord@xxxxxxx>]

    > From: bear <bear@xxxxxxxxx>

    > On Sun, 25 Jan 2004, Tom Lord wrote:

    > >    > However, in either case you still have two problems:

    > >    >   1) Both are very different from unconditional O(1) access.

    > >The language I recommend for R6RS says "expected case O(1)", not
    > >unconditional.

    > >It's not a requirement, just guidance -- so it doesn't prevent any
    > >implementation from conforming.
    > 

    > If it's guidance rather than a requirement, it would be better
    > to use the word "recommended" rather than "expected".  The latter
    > has a technical meaning when talking about algorithmic complexity,
    > which is the expected runtime of an algorithm for "normal" data.

?

I'm using "expected" in the technical sense you refer to.

The proposed guidance is about expected, not worst-case performance.

(At the same time -- this is turning silly.   It would be
unprecedented to have performance-related guidance in R^nRS
so perhaps the simplest thing is just to let the precedent stand.)

Just consider me as having walked around in the commons for a while
carrying a big sign that says "Don't make lame implementations of
Scheme strings."

-t