From ... Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news2.kpn.net!news.kpn.net!nslave.kpnqwest.net!nloc.kpnqwest.net!nmaster.kpnqwest.net!nreader1.kpnqwest.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: First-class symbols (Re: Why is Scheme not a Lisp?) References: <87pu28kzjy.fsf@charter.net> <87eliokv9v.fsf@charter.net> <87sn73c40c.fsf@charter.net> <87lmcrmzp3.fsf@becket.becket.net> Mail-Copies-To: never From: Erik Naggum Message-ID: <3225347578362126@naggum.net> Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway Lines: 35 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 09:52:46 GMT X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@KPNQwest.no X-Trace: nreader1.kpnqwest.net 1016358766 193.71.199.50 (Sun, 17 Mar 2002 10:52:46 MET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 10:52:46 MET Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.lisp:29227 * Thomas Bushnell, BSG | In Scheme, the thing that is missing here is not some kind of | first-classness of the symbol, but rather, the first-classness of the | environment. As seen from Common Lisp, symbols in Scheme are just like identifiers in the Algol family, but you also have a type for an interned string that has nothing to do with the identifiers. These are really two different things. Real Lisps have real symbols. | Common Lisp has various public ways to access one special environment | (the dynamic environment), and thus for special variables, there is a | convenient and accessible mapping from the symbol name to its dynamic | value. I wish you would at least _try_ to understand the Common Lisp way. | It's not that these are impossible problems, but they are some of the | reasons that there is great diversity of opinion about what the Right | Thing is, and Scheme generally only moves when all the players have | agreed on the Right Thing. But looking for The Right Thing is not a Right Thing. Part of the reason that Scheme is such an unattractive language is that it tries to say that "there is such a thing as a universal and globally unique Right Thing", and this is _such_ a ludicrous position in the first place. Sometimes, when I hear Scheme people talk, and you among them, I get the impression that there are 26 people trying to argue which is the Only Right Letter and they are _so_ in the need of someone to say "Hey, dudes! One word: _alphabet_". /// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.