continuation terminology

[Chris Haynes <cth%indiana.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>]

We object strongly to the use of the term "escape procedure".  The word
"escape" is far to limiting to describe continuations, which are good for so
much more.  Also, the term "escape procedure" is strongly associated with the
limited facility by that name provided by most Lisp systems (which isn't good
for much besides "escaping").  If we adopt the old Lisp name, many will
assume that continuations aren't good for anything more than Lisp escape
procedures, and will miss what we feel is one of the most important
distinguishing features of Scheme.

We find the term "continuation" to be quit satisfactory in most contexts, and
it agrees with the name "call-with-current-continuation".  However, we
recognize that in the context of denotational semantics or implementation
discussions, there is possibility of confusing continuations as first-class
programming objects and their semantic or implementation counterparts.  Thus
additional terminology is desirable when such distinctions must be made, and
to standardize such terminology it should probably be used in the Revised
Revised Report.  We suggest the term "continuation object" for this purpose,
though it is not wonderful and we welcome other suggestions.

-- Chris Haynes
   Dan Friedman
   Eugene Kohlbecker