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On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 campbell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: >Before I get to responding to the content of this message, let me first >state my position on square brackets for arrays. > >I think it would be much better to leave this SRFI as it is with regard >to parentheses versus square brackets and later have a SRFI, or perhaps >have it in R6RS, to make square brackets equivalent to parentheses. I think that squanders expressive power. Different tokens *should* mean different things, especially when the alternatives are cumbersome combinations of the by-now far overworked # character. But, that's more an opinion on the formulation of a new lisp dialect, than on the extension of an existing one. You're probably right that there is sufficient momentum now in the scheme community for conflating parens and brackets that an opportunity to put brackets to a different use has, in practical terms, probably already been lost. > I'm opposed to any specialized square bracket syntax for arrays, and > very strongly so to such a complicated syntax as bear proposes. *sigh*. I thought I was proposing something simpler. Sorry if I missed the mark so badly. I think arrays are too fundamental to have any complicated or verbose syntax. Lispy lists are brilliant: open-paren, elements, close paren. I would love to be able to have something that simple and elegant for arrays. openbracket, elements, closebracket. The need to specify types for uniform arrays and ranks for arrays with multiple dimensions one of which is possibly zero complicates it, but the simplest case, IMO, should be as simple to express and as fundamental in syntax as a list. > Although I don't have a better suggestion for the number syntax, I > can't claim to like it as it is, either, and I think there are many > who share my sentiments. (I have certainly spoken to a number of > them, and I recall a great deal of discussion over confusion in the > number syntax on RRRS-authors in the past. Bear seems to agree with > me here.) Yep. It needs to be combined with the exactness information somehow. Bear