Re: Topes

[William Clinger <will@skinner.cs.uoregon.edu>]

I agree with Jonathan.  If I were designing a language from scratch,
and I wanted it to have something like assignments, then I would
probably use references instead and leave out assignments.  I think
removing SET! from Scheme is too big a change, so I don't have that
option when designing an improvement to Scheme.

Faced therefore with a choice between assignments by themselves or
assignments together with a second mechanism for references, I prefer
assignments by themselves.  I think it would be silly to have two
separate mechanisms whose capabilities are nearly identical.

William Clinger