Subject: Re: That place.. (was: How to make a mutually recursive macro and   function)
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 2000/03/06
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3161342090902304@naggum.no>

* "Fernando D. Mato Mira" <matomira@iname.com>
| And even less amazing than that some believe call/cc is useless

  and who would that be?  why exaggerate a technical argument into rampant
  stupidity?

  _nobody_ who understands it believes call/cc is _useless_.  that's not
  just way too strong a word, it's missing the point _entirely_.  given a
  particular choice of function calling model, call/cc is very definitely
  elegant and the right implementation choice.  the question is whether
  that model is _productive_ in a much greater context than just whatever
  you can cram into a thin, elegant specification.

  no model is _useless_, either, as Scheme's model has certainly explored
  territory that otherwise would not be explored.  all in all, a valuable
  contribution to computer science.  that doesn't mean we have to _do_ it
  that way in practical implementations.  research is _supposed_ to produce
  a lot of "known dead ends" so other researchers and practitioners alike
  know where _not_ to go.  in this particular instance, Scheme's function
  call model is where you must _not_ go.

  that it's time to discard a model doesn't mean it's useless in every or
  even many respects, but there might well be some particular respect in
  which some jerk would find it completely useless and extrapolate from
  that to the general case.  I find such arguments completely useless and
  excessively disrespectful towards the research activity that led to it.

  in short: being wrong is _not_ being useless.  being stupid is, however.

#:Erik