Per Bothner scripsit: > To "win" pattern-matching really should be the default and integrated > into the language core, rather than an optional module that uses > separate keywords. E.g. there shouldn't be a difference between lambda > and match-lambda*. The latter is too verbose!
Being in the core and being spelled "lambda" are orthogonal points. The module can say (export (rename match-lambda* lambda)) and then importers will get the pattern-matching lambda, or they themselves can import it as (import (rename (scheme patterns) (match-lambda* lambda))). In a world of import and export renaming, the precise name of a procedure or syntax keyword is no longer much of an issue. > At the least we could have a standard library that redefines the > standard keywords lambda, let, ... etc to versions that support > patterns. Exactly. > The biggest issue appears to be define. Changing define to have > the syntax: > (define <pattern> <expression>) Why wouldn't it be (define (<name> . <pattern) <expression>)? A define without an identifier being defined doesn't make much sense to me. > (begin > (def var1 exp1) ;; OR: (::= var1 exp1) etc (def var2 exp2) > (def varn expn) Reading 'define' for 'def', this looks like R5RS to me. We only use 'let' out of habit, really; nine times out of ten, the definitions are independent, and any of 'let', 'let*', 'letrec', or internal 'define' (aka 'letrec*') will work. -- John Cowan co...@ccil.org http://ccil.org/~cowan No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. --John Donne _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list r6rs-discuss@lists.r6rs.org http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
