Re: [Chicken-users] New immediate values (was: DBI)

[felix winkelmann]

On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 9:56 PM, John Cowan <address@hidden> wrote:
>  >
>  > Why do we need this? I can't remember right now...
>
>  To represent the null object of foreign environments that do not conflate
>  null with the empty sequence -- not only SQL but also Lua, Java (and
>  other JVM languages), .NET, and others.

When you look for a generic "null" or "void" object, that is used for a
particular library, then any unique value is sufficient, whether immediate
or not. As I already replied to Graham, immediacy vs. non-immediacy is
an implementation detail and shouldn't concern us here. The performance
benefit is negligible.

I have the feeling that immediacy is desired by the proponents of
a new unique "void" value because it *feels* right to them, not because
there is any real requirement.


cheers,
felix