[Scheme-reports] 5. Program Structure

[Andy Wingo <wingo@x>]

I would encourage readers to take a look at section 5, as it is _the_
new section of the R7RS, and as such deserves a closer look.  It's only
a few pages long.  Print the pages out and enjoy them over coffee.

I think the division of valid kinds of declarations as "variable
definitions, syntax definitions, or record-type definitions" is pretty
nasty.  I don't see why record-type definitions can't be defined as a
sequence of variable and syntax definitions.  What is the intention
here?  I assume you should still be able to define new record types in
lexical environments?

The description of "begin" should simple be a link back to the original
section on "begin" and its two functions.

The typesetting of the "rename" kind of import declaration would benefit
by a newline after <import set 1>.

In the paragraph Marc mentioned:

    In a program or library declaration, it is an error to import the
    same identifier more than once with different bindings, or to
    redefine or mutate an imported binding with a definition or with
    set!, or to refer to an identifier before it is imported.

How does one refer to an identifier before it is imported?

In 5.3.1, I think introducing `define' as `set!' is pretty wrong.  I
would reverse the order of the presentation and treat the
existing-binding case as special.

In 5.3.2, it says:

    An expanded body containing internal definitions (but not syntax
    definitions or record definitions) can always be converted into a
    completely equivalent letrec* expression.

The parenthetical statement is unnecessary, as an expanded body has no
syntax definitions.

Also it's not true, unfortunately!  Because in the next section, "5.3.3
Multiple-value definitions", we see the introduction of `define-values'
with an optimistically short specification and no corresponding
expansion.  I think you _cannot_ introduce define-values without
`letrec-values' and `letrec*-values' and corresponding semantics -- and
since it's so late in the WG1 process it's best to just remove
define-values, unfortunately.  Implementations can (as always) do as
they like.

Finally, in 5.5, the lack of specification of whether the
record-type-descriptor is a syntactic or value binding is unfortunate, I
think.  But OK!

This is getting long so I'll write another mail for the rest.

Andy
-- 
http://wingolog.org/

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