On 7/10/07, William D Clinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > More than twenty years have passed since I wrote this [1]: > > Programming languages should be designed not by > piling feature on top of feature, but by removing the > weaknesses and restrictions that make additional > features appear necessary. Scheme demonstrates that > a very small number of rules for forming expressions, > with no restrictions on how they are composed, > suffice to form a practical and efficient programming > language that is flexible enough to support most of > the major programming paradigms in use today. > > I still believe that first sentence, and I still believe > Scheme ought to demonstrate what is claimed in the second > sentence, but the draft we are being asked to ratify does > not always do that.
In my mind, the restriction on allowable macro literals, which excludes ... and _, undermines the second claim and should be removed from the draft. Some of consequences of this restriction have been pointed out in the thread starting here: http://lists.r6rs.org/pipermail/r6rs-discuss/2007-June/002784.html In particular, the inability to write certain kinds of general macro-generating-macros strikes me as a shame, aggravated by the fact that the restriction exists without any motivation as far as I can tell. David _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
