Jonathan Rees for editor

[willc%tekchips%tektronix.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA]

Jonathan Rees once volunteered to do the next edition of the RRRS, fixing
a number of minor problems such as the inconsistencies that have been
noted concerning constants.  There's certainly no one I'd trust more
to do it, and so I move that we take him up on his offer.

Are you still willing, Jonathan?

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By the way, I have a few remarks in response to Jonathan's observations
on quote.  Jonathan's words are indented.

  For example, suppose there's a bug in a macro, and it returns a closure
  instead of a lambda-exparession....

I've been burned by that in MacScheme, where quotes are optional except
for symbols and non-empty lists.

  So I think that an intermediate position between 2 and 3 *can* be
  justified by the principle of Occam's razor, and we should disallow
  self-evaluation of vectors, procedures, and other "random" objects
  because it's unnecessary....

No, no.  Self-evaluation of numbers and strings is also unnecessary, so
no intermediate position can be justified by Occam's razor or any other
principle.  It is important that we acknowledge the lack of a principled
justification, because some of us can be stubborn and downright ornery
if we think we're arguing about principles rather than personal tastes.

  It is true that distinctions become arbitrary here, but in each case we
  can apply judgement the same way that we applied judgement in the
  inclusion of any language feature....

Exactly right.  I'd be happy with the judgment of the RRRS on this matter
if it were made internally consistent, and I think most others would also.

peace, Will