Re: Why would anyone want opacity?

[Matthias Blume <blume@CS.Princeton.EDU>]

Even though I'm tempted to say something about the previous reply I
will leave it at this.  You are right, it is getting tedious.

From: "Guillermo J. Rozas" <gjr@martigny.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Why would anyone want opacity?
Date: Tue, 14 May 96 16:45:06 -0400

> I have no idea what you are talking about here.  I was talking about
> the assembler in the MIT Scheme compiler.  This assembler runs only in
> MIT Scheme which _does_ have bignums.  The issue of bignums being
> present or my having to worry about their presence is therefore moot.

I was talking about Scheme, not one particular implementation of it.

> I see, so you argument is
> 
> "Because you don't support everything that might be useful, you should
> not support X that many people find useful".

``Languages should be designed not by piling....''

No, what I say is this:  you don't *have* to support X, but you are
free to provide it (as an extension, or a library).  To be able to do
so the language should have means of expressing extendability.  So
even though you are not required to support X you are required to
support means of adding X, Y, Z, ...

Ok, that's all from me.  Over and out.

-Matthias