Re: [Scheme-reports] "It is an error" is misleading

[Noah Lavine <noah.b.lavine@x>]

Hello,

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 7:50 AM, Vassil Nikolov <vnikolov@x> wrote:

Helmut Eller <eller.helmut@x> wrote:

> ...

> However the meaning of "it is an error" in R7RS is the same as "it is
> unspecified".

  "Undefined", not "unspecified".

  This use of "it is an error" is well established.

That is true, but it is nevertheless confusing that there are two concepts in the standard called "error", and they are very different - the error objects/exception system and unspecified behavior. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on.

Perhaps the authors think that "it is a user error to use this behavior", at least from the standpoint of R7RS-small. That may be true, but that would be easy to infer if the standard said "undefined", and it would prevent a casual reader from seeing "error" and thinking of error objects.

Noah Lavine

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