On Mon, 2009-03-23 at 19:34 -0400, David Van Horn wrote: > Thomas Lord wrote:
> > "Unspecified" seems like the accurate spec. > > (string->number string) procedure > (string->number string radix) procedure > > It is clear that the intention was that string->number could only be > applied either to a string or to string and an exact integer that is > either 2, 8, 10, or 16---both from the text of the report and from the > recent emails by the editors. It is not hard to imagine generalizations. One can easily imagine (quite serious, not fake example) extensions to "string->number" to support additional types and numbers of arguments. It is hard to imagine a set of generalizations that everyone would agree every implementation ought to have. So, how to handle these "edge cases"? An exception? Return #f? Something else (say, perhaps, making the function a generic in the CL sense)? Who is to say? Scheme is thought to be, in some sense a gem crystal but I think as a community we don't all agree yet about its lattice structure and hence macroscopic shape. We're "blind" to it, each groping its surface and sharing guesses - like the old "blind men and elephant" jokes. That's what "unspecified" is for. > > If this is unspecified, the word "must" would mean very little in the > report. Wouldn't it mean something like "must if the behavior of the program is expected to be defined by this report"? That seems like saying quite a lot, even by my relatively loquacious standards. > > An erratum clarifying the note seems appropriate. > Only in a very sad way, to me. -t > David > _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
