[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] Remove the (r6rs when-unless) library

From: William D Clinger <will>
Date: Mon Mar 12 10:18:32 2007

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.

Michael Sperber wrote:
> As I don't use `when' and `unless', it's clear that
> they're not worth the cost to me. I wonder what others think.

I don't use them either, and it's harder for me to
read code that uses them because I have to stop and
think whenever I see either, especially "unless".

If we "must" have these things in the R6RS (because
a portable SRFI would be too inefficient?), then
banishing them to a separate library is valuable,
not only so people can more easily avoid pollution
of their mental name space but also so the library
can serve as repository for other miscellaneous
control syntax such as while, until, dijkstra, and
of course the Common Lisp-style loop macro whose
absence has prevented Scheme from being taken
seriously as a mainstream programming language.
To serve that second purpose, however, the library
should be renamed to (r6rs syntax control).

We could also have (r6rs syntax records) and
(r6rs syntax case-lambda).

Will
Received on Mon Mar 12 2007 - 10:18:23 UTC