Re: Remaining questions & remarks (2)

[Perry Wagle <wagle%iuvax.indiana.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>]

(2)   <, >, etc are composed solely of "special symbols", and classically are
    predicates.  With this view in mind, perhaps the exception is not so big
    as naive application of Occam's Razor would suggest.  I support essential
    <, >, etc, and the removal of their "xxx?" counterparts.

(5)   Many otherwise portable Scheme programs would die under unrestrained
    interleaving.  I claim that a Scheme should have the semantics of a
    single logical processor no matter what the underlying architecture is.
    I think that mention of parallelism should be left out altogether, as
    any mention would call for ad hoc measures (synchronization primitives?
    bleagh!), and restraint to a "single logical processor" is probably an
    obituary (within ten years or so?).

(7)  I would like to guard input and output commands with INPUT-PORT? and
    OUTPUT-PORT? respectively.  I think closed ports SHOULD be ports, but
    not input or output ports;  I support the predicate: PORT?.

(11)  I would very much like PROCEDURE? and consider continuation objects
    to be procedures.  While appealing, I don't support APPLICABLE? as it
    would be the only type predicate that doesn't name the type its checking
    for.

(12)  I oppose one-armed IFs.  I've been happy with WHEN and UNLESS that
    return NIL when the condition isn't met.

(14)  I have "meta"-procedures that invoke LOAD.  I *demand* that you not cut
    my arms and legs off for "esthetic reasons".

(15)  I think that *all* ASCII characters should be "legibly typable" (e.g.
    #\null, etc), but then I only run on ASCII machines.