Re: [Chicken-users] basic Scheme question

[John Cowan]

Shawn Rutledge scripsit:

> [W]hy should I have to re-create functionality which is one of the
> most basic features of Scheme (being able to look up symbols and get
> values bound to them)

Actually, it isn't: Scheme has no such facility.  Symbols in Scheme
have no properties except their print names.  (In Chicken and Chez,
but not in most other Schemes, they also have a p-list which you can
exploit for the environment I mentioned in my last posting.)  It's true
that Scheme binds *identifiers* to values, but there is no requirement
that identifiers are represented by symbols, or at all, at run time.

But if you want Common Lisp, where symbols do have values that are known
to EVAL, you know where to find it.

-- 
John Cowan    <address@hidden>     http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
But no living man am I!  You look upon a woman.  Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter.
You stand between me and my lord and kin.  Begone, if you be not deathless.
For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him.