Re: [Scheme-reports] Three really picky points

On 2012-01-10, at 19:40, Alex Shinn wrote, responding to me:

(re exact results)

I think the formal meaning of "should" used in the draft already
implies "attempt to".

That's not my understanding of the definition of `should' from RFC 2119;

the text reads

   SHOULD   This word, or the adjective "RECOMMENDED", mean that there
   may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a
   particular item, but the full implications must be understood and
   carefully weighed before choosing a different course.

This sounds like a design decision (and that's the way I've always interpreted

`should'), rather than a specification of how a procedure should behave. I

know I'm being picky, but the original paragraph sounded wrong to me when I

read it carefully this morning, and I only picked on `should' after the fact.

It feels contradictory, even though I admit it isn't. I don't mind if my

suggestion isn't adopted, I just think the paragraph should be reworded.

(re inexact->exact and exact->inexact)

I removed this because we don't, in general, discuss the
historical reasons for names so it seemed out of place.
The notes were not updated, but will be before the final
draft (unless someone proposes we uniformly explain all
non-obvious names).

That's fine, but it's still a fact that the names of these procedures

are misleading. There's a distinction between a name like cdr, which is

meaningless to those who don't know and love the IBM 709 computer, and

inexact->exact, which might actively confuse the reader. I agree that

the procedures are correctly described in the entry, but the names are

at such variance from the description that the reader is justified in

wondering if it's the description that's wrong rather than the names.

Some text such as `Note: These procedures accept as an argument any

kind of number, despite their names.' would help clarify that. That

sounds kind of clunky (and somewhat duplicates the description), so

my preferred wording is `Note: The names of these procedures are

historical if not completely descriptive.', I don't think any

further explanation need be provided.

-- vincent