[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] String positions and string slices

From: Chris Hanson <cph>
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:33:41 -0400

William D Clinger wrote:
> I am posting this as an individual member of the Scheme
> community. I am not speaking for the R6RS editors, and
> this message should not be confused with the editors'
> eventual formal response.

I am posting this as a historical member of the Scheme community. I am
not speaking for the community, and this message should not be confused
with the community's eventual belief structure. However, failure to
comply with the advice contained in this message may result in
historical oblivion. :)

> Quibble: I think the historical view of strings should be
> continued for backwards compatibility with Scheme tradition.
> In particular, eliminating string-set! and its mutating
> friends would break backward compatibility and make the
> transition from R5RS to R6RS even more difficult and less
> acceptable to the conservative elements of our community.

Agreed.

> Making all strings read-only, as I advocated
> at Brandeis (but gave in to Chris Hanson and others who were
> arguing for mutable strings), would break too much code for
> us to make that change now.

Ah, history comes back to bite us in the behind. Back when I was
working with ASCII, that made some kind of sense. These days, not so
much. But again, I think we agree as to the present action.

> In my opinion, texts should be written up as a SRFI, and
> then be considered for inclusion in the R7RS.

<flame>

Yes, but the same could be said for many of the experiments currently
being pushed into R6RS. Speaking only for myself and some
as-yet-unidentified historical brethren, I would be much happier with a
less radical and more evolutionary document. Why exactly is it
necessary to change **everything** now? Either this process works, in
which case there will be further revisions. Or it doesn't, in which
case it doesn't matter.

The editors should be in trying to make this document a success, rather
than in packing it with all these new things. A more conservative
document stands a much better chance of ratification and implementation.
That's important, because the way things are going I am very skeptical
that R6RS will be implemented.

</flame>
Received on Tue Apr 10 2007 - 00:33:41 UTC