[r6rs-discuss] Hashes in the number syntax

From: William D Clinger <will>
Date: Wed Nov 22 18:37:55 2006

I am posting this as an individual member of the Scheme
community. I am not speaking for the R6RS editors.

Kent Dybvig wrote:
> Regardless, I agree that the hash syntax is probably not often used, but I
> think it's a useful notation and will be even more useful (and more used)
> once we standardize on formatted output. The cost to support it is small:
> the syntax occupies a syntactic space that is not likely to be useful for
> anything else, and the added reader complexity is minimal.

The cost of implementing the feature is small, but the
cost of having it in the language without explaining
its purpose or semantics is somewhat larger, and seems
larger than its current benefit.

In this short discussion, we have already seen at least
two experienced Schemers interpret 1## in a way that
the R*RS authors never intended and no implementations
are known to support. That kind of confusion creates
more problems than dropping the notation would create.

Will
Received on Wed Nov 22 2006 - 18:37:51 UTC