Re: [Scheme-reports] "unspecified values"

[Emmanuel Medernach <emmanuel.medernach@x>]

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 8:50 PM, Jim Rees <jimreesma@x> wrote:

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 1:10 PM, Andy Wingo <wingo@x> wrote:

I do not agree with the note that permitting any number of values to be

returned from `set!' et al is incompatible.  It is not incompatible with

implementations, as it widens the scope of what they may do.....

Requiring a single unspecified value means that:

    (let ((x (if #f 'never))) <stuff that does not depend on x>)

is legal Scheme code (based on the interpretation that initializers *must* return a single value, unspecified or not).

So, allowing implementations to return multiple or zero unspecified values would actually shrink the language from what it used to be.   This is what I observe the WG tries very hard to avoid, especially if "lots of existing code" depends on the status quo.

I know nothing about the existing code that depends on this particular feature.   I would personally have preferred "any number", as it's handy for detecting buggy code.

"In the land of the one-armed IF, the people go blind from squinting"
-- Shriram Krishnamurthi

Relying on a value from an _expression_ which could have none is potentially buggy. I would not go and standardize such "status quo".

In Dr Racket they enforced to always have an 'else' clause. I would suggest that one armed "if" should return no values.

PS: For me the real problem is elsewhere: I really dislike to have a value which is an unspecified one, I prefer instead that implementations return nothing - as in (values) - and to let the standard legitimates some implementation which wants to return something (as with MIT-Scheme with set! to have a kind of test-and-set instruction, however I don't know of other examples) 

Best regards,
--
Emmanuel Medernach
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