[r6rs-discuss] Rationale issues

From: William D Clinger <will>
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 05:05:32 -0400

Andre van Tonder wrote:
> - (15.1) "Therefore, the parent clause only accepts other
> record types defined using the syntactic layer." - I do not think
> the argument given implies the necessity of the "therefore", since
> an implementation can determine for itself whether the parent
> has been defined via the syntactic layer and optimize or not based
> on that determination. More seriously, I think
> this restriction impedes modularity - changing
> a definition from syntactic to procedural in some library
> may break dependent libraries even if no properties of the
> record type (other than the mode of definition) has been changed.
> In fact, the mode of definition becomes an extra property of the
> data type, so the "syntactic layer" is not really a "layer" but
> introduces new things.

+1

This is one of the two issues (the other being versions)
that, if left unrepaired in a candidate draft, would
make it impossible for me to advocate ratification of
that draft.

Will
Received on Wed Jun 27 2007 - 05:05:32 UTC