Re: [Chicken-users] future of chicken?

[Perry E. Metzger]

William Annis <address@hidden> writes:
>  >As for anaphoric "if", it has an appeal; in lieu of that I use
>  >a variant inspired by the "=>" syntax in "cond":
[...]

>         I've also done this, but I think it's ugly.  I find that about
> half the time I do a test like this I need the anaphoric variety.  I
> want 'if' to do this all the time.

Eh, call it if* or if% or !? or whatever. It isn't "ugly", at least
not for these purposes. It gives you the ability to play with
something and see how you like it, which is really really critical
when designing such things.

> I should point out that the project Pete and I are envisioning
> is *not* scheme, *is* inspired by scheme and uses scheme as the
> implementation language.  Chicken seems the best bootstrapping
> language.

Well, perhaps... but it isn't clear that most of the features
described in the arc documents aren't so easily implemented just by
augmenting scheme with a few macros that it is worth the effort.

The reason for going for a whole new infrastructure is when you find
yourself with fundamental semantic differences (like, for instance,
Common Lisp's very different ideas about funargs and tail recursion.)
When the differences are small enough that a small augmentation lets
you do most of your playing, it isn't clear that the new
infrastructure is worth it.

BTW, where did you get the term "anamorphic" from -- it isn't used
that way by most folks....

-- 
Perry E. Metzger                address@hidden
--
"Ask not what your country can force other people to do for you..."