Re: JACAL, scm

[Tom Lord]

       > [The three value solution, nil, (), #f, with R5RS the default
       > top level for Guile] is not a very good
       > proposal.  It causes more problems than it solves.

       Well, I'd like it if you could explain in detail here what problems it
       creates.

       It seems to have the following advantages:
        Unmodified Emacs Lisp code continues to work
         Unmodified standard Scheme code continues to work

         Your proposal seems to depend on two things that I dislike:
          A preference for making users adapt the language they write in rather
            than developer time spent making things work right for all users
             A relabeling of standard-conformant Scheme code as "very finicky"

An extended discussion of the issues would do better in a design
document, than on this list.

Briefly, supporting both standards: R4RS (with the choice that '() and
#f are the same) and R5RS is not the problem.  The problem is making
R5RS the default -- that decision represents a major change in the
(admittedly crude) design spec stated at the outset of the project.

Recent evidence suggests that there would be little point to
resparking an email "debate" over the virtues of R4RS vs. R5RS
on this list, at this time.

-t