Re: [Scheme-reports] Mutable Pairs

[John Cowan <cowan@x>]

Alaric Snell-Pym scripsit:

> But, ah, can everyone please be a bit less emotive and "personal" about
> this issue? Nobody's out to destroy Scheme here (unless we have
> UNDERGROUND AGENTS from the RUBY/PERL/JAVA/PHP/INSERT-ENEMY-HERE
> COMMUNITY! ;-) - just throwing out ideas on what might be best for it.

Well, actually I am an aboveground agent for several of those communities.

Eli Barzilay scripsit:

> Seems that I need to repeat this a fifth time:
> - I do *not* use a language with no mutation,
> - I do *not* advocate a language with no mutation,
> - I do *not* want a language with no mutation,
> - I do *not* teach a language with no mutation.

Or, in short:  "I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the
Puritist Party."

David Rush scripsit:

> This seems rather arbitrary, and wrong-headed (due to knock-on effects)
> in light of things like breaking mutable a-lists. Scheme is a language
> which allows free mutation of bindings and primitive objects. Immutable
> pairs is a big step on a slippery slope to a very different language.

To be fair, it only breaks mutable a-lists of which the cdr is mutated;
car mutation isn't really a problem.  (I agree that mutable-car/immutable-cdr
pairs would be a Good Thing; indeed, one could view vectors as lists made
with such pairs.)

Out of curiosity, would you have similar objections to immutable strings?

-- 
[W]hen I wrote it I was more than a little              John Cowan
febrile with foodpoisoning from an antique carrot       cowan@x
that I foolishly ate out of an illjudged faith          http://ccil.org/~cowan
in the benignancy of vegetables.  --And Rosta

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