Re: Interesting Behavior of 'append!' In Local Context

[Eric McDonald]

Stephen Compall wrote:

> Literals are literally literal.  That is to say:
> 
> (define (itsaliteral) '(42 42))

Thanks, Stephen. I never really looked at quote as declaring a literal.
I primarily saw its use for suppressing evaluation inside the quoted
entity, and as a convenient shorthand for making lists. I guess it's a
convenient shorthand for making _literal_ lists. (And, the Guile
documentation even uses the word literal - now that I'm looking for it. ;-)

> It is an error to modify literals, but it is also not required by R5RS
> to detect and inform of such erroneous modification.  It is, however,

Fair enough. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing "detect and inform"
implemented for this case. As a comparison: if I'm writing C or C++
code, and I try to modify a const value, the compiler is generally going
to let me know.

Anyway, sorry to trouble the list with a noobish oversight.

Regards,
  Eric