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Re: Simple symbols as keywords

This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 89 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 89 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.




On Thu, 4 May 2006, soo wrote:

>I wonder why a new data type such as keyword object is necessary to
>implement named optional parameters.
>Aren't simple symbols enough to use as keywords?

Yes, absolutely.  The keyword is a redundant concept.

Of course, to use symbols that way now, you have to either quote
them (which I usually do) or make sure that they self-evaluate,
presumably by making them variables whose value is the symbol
that is the name of the variable, as done in Common Lisp.



				Bear