lexical list

[cph (Chris Hanson)]

   Date: Tue, 20 Mar 90 16:19:16 -0500
   From: R. Kent Dybvig <dyb@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>

   There has not been any discussion among the macro committee that I am
   aware of regarding the status of "'", "`", ",", and ",@", prior to the
   current discussion in this newsgroup.  For what it's worth, I don't
   like with Pavel's suggestion that "'x" be treated differently "(quote
   x)"; this would make the use of "read" as a front end to the compiler
   impossible, unless we change "read" in some strange way, and it means
   that I can't redefine "quote" and use the handy "'" mark to refer to my
   own version of "quote".  It also seems strange to provide a back-door
   way to insert top-level "quote" into a program where no such mechanism
   is provided for other top-level syntax keywords.

I agree with both Kent and Jinx on this issue: the reader's "'" and
"`" syntax should be equivalent to the "quote" and "quasiquote"
expressions.  If we permit "quote" or "quasiquote" to be redefined,
then the reader syntax should be captured by this redefinition exactly
as the "quote" and "quasiquote" expressions are.