Re: [Scheme-reports] multiple values module

[John Cowan <cowan@x>]

Eli Barzilay scripsit:

> And that's very unfortunate.  Things like (list (values 1 2) 3) are
> nonsensical when you talk about their *meaning*, because values are
> not *specified* as things that are reified as first class values.
> Either way (specifying such a reification or making it behave like
> multiple values) is far better than the neither-here-nor-there mess.

I agree that it's nonsensical.  I emphatically don't agree that the job
of this standard is to make all nonsense illegal.  R6RS is a standard
that tries.  ECMAScript 5th edition and HTML5 try even harder to,
prescribing the exact behavior of every implementation on every possible
string of input characters.  R5RS, and following it R7RS, prescribes
certain things and leaves others up to the implementation.

> > Or you can use a unique type, or even a non-unique type. [...]
> > Chibi's use cases just aren't anything like Racket's.
>
> How is Racket related to anything I've said?

Its use cases are about as remote from Chibi's as could be.  It's not
surprising that it does things differently.  No personal reference was
intended.

> In this implementation, (car (values)) becomes a dangerous
> implementation-exposing value.

As far as the standard is concerned, evaluating (car (values)) licenses
your implementation to make demons fly out of your nose.  I am not being
flippant: see http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/N/nasal-demons.html .

> > Ultimately, if you want R6RS, you know where to find it.
>
> Why the inferiority complex?

You've missed my point.  I mentioned R6RS as an instance of the kind of
restrictive standard I explained above.

> This is the kind of childish reply that makes r7rs look like a
> childish response to r6rs.  Coming from the chairman of wg2 makes this
> kind of response worse.

Why?  Do you imagine that the WG2 charter has anything to do with R6RS,
other than to avoid _gratuitous_ incompatibility with a suitably chosen
subset of it?

> And once you've fixated into that complex, you just continue with it
> not looking left or right.  Here's a list of words that were not used
> in my post:
>
>   * R5RS R6RS R7RS R[0-9]*RS Standard Conform.*

Once you've talked about what implementations should or should not do,
you are in the realm of conformance, even if only conformance to a
standard in your head.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan@x   http://ccil.org/~cowan
"The exception proves the rule."  Dimbulbs think: "Your counterexample proves
my theory."  Latin students think "'Probat' means 'tests': the exception puts
the rule to the proof."  But legal historians know it means "Evidence for an
exception is evidence of the existence of a rule in cases not excepted from."

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