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Re: syntax changes (srfi-107/108/109)

This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 108 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 108 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.



On 12/29/2012 07:22 PM, John Cowan wrote:
Per Bothner scripsit:
There is a seeming ambiguity, since in Scheme the character '&'
is a valid symbol character.  However, a symbol followed
immediately by either '{' or '[' is not defined by standard
Scheme, so this is a conflict-free extension.

Unfortunately, &condition[car '(a b c)] is perfectly well-defined
R6RS lexical syntax, where [] means the same as () and symbols
beginning with ampersands are actually standard for names of
condition types.  I don't say it should be that way, but it is.

Technically, it's well-defined R6RS lexical syntax, but it would be
horrible style.  First, people would normally put a space before
the '['.  Secondly, I don't see '[...]' used much except for "clauses"
(rather than expressions), and if '[...]' is used only for such clauses
(as I see in the Racket documentation) that doesn't seem like it would
conflict.

&section{News as of &(current-date)}

This being, I presume, shorthand for &section{News as of &[(current-date)]}.

Correct.

+ Kawa has this syntax for a vector constructor:
   [e1 e2 ... en]
This is the same as `#(,e1 ,e2 ... ,en), which is the same as
(vector e1 e2 .. en) except producing an immutable vector.

More to the point, the last is code, whereas the first two are
lexical syntax and therefore work in data.  I think it's important
to always keep the data applications firmly in mind.
[LATER]
Hmm, it seems I was wrong.  [a b c] complains of undefined variables,
so it really is (vector a b c), whereas #(a b c) is indeed lexical syntax.

Right - the e1 ... en are (in Kawa) expressions that are evaluated.
And `#(,e1 ,e2 ... ,en) is *not* lexical syntax that works in data.
At least not in any meaningful sense.  (The reader does return a
form, just like it does for [e1 e2 ... en], but it doesn't seem useful
except in expression context.)
--
	--Per Bothner
per@xxxxxxxxxxx   http://per.bothner.com/