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From: grante@reddwarf.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Property list question
Message-ID: <1994Oct19.164638.29432@rosevax.rosemount.com>
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References: <1994Oct14.225950.28456@rosevax.rosemount.com> <37ui9nINNboe@ford.is.wdi.disney.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 16:46:38 GMT
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Thant Tessman (thant@disney.com) wrote:

: > The book states that property lists belong to "symbols."  The text is
: > quite explicit that the argument must be a symbol, and all examples
: > are shown with quoted symbols.
: > 
: > Do the properties in fact belong to the symbol and not to the object
: > to which the symbol is bound?

: First off, it should be made clear that symbols are different from
: variables. 

: 	(define string "hi there")
: 	string => "hi there"
: 	'string => string
: 	(eval 'string) => "hi there"

: Property lists belong to the symbol.  Not the variable of the same
: name, or the thing bound to that variable.

That is now clear -- thanks.

: > I haven't been very pleased with the book in general - the sections
: > describing the various procedures do not specify what is required by
: > R4RS as part of the core language, what is defined but not required,
: > and what is an extension to Chez Scheme.   [...]

: This is a valid flaw with the book.  And Chez Scheme has a lot of
: really nice but nonstandard features that I've failed to resist the
: temptation to use.  The book might be inappropriate to learn Scheme
: from if you don't plan on using Chez Scheme specifically.

The problem was that I didn't know what was an extension and what
wasn't until I got a copy of R4RS, at which time I found the form
summary in the back of "The Scheme Programming Language."

The FAQ referred to it as a "reference book" (which is what I wanted)
and I didn't spend enough time before I bought it to figure out that
it is more of text/tutorial that I had anticipated, and I also didn't
realize how much of the content was specific to Chez Scheme.

As it turns out, R4RS was closer to what I wanted than anything else
I've seen.

: But I've found the book very clear and readable, and more than one
: programmer here has learned Scheme solely from that book.

On a slightly different note, is there any literature on the
engineering with Scheme rather than language theory side?  Stuff like
tips on style, programming techniques and tricks, reusability,
organizing source code into packages or libraries, etc.

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  I want you to MEMORIZE
Rosemount Inc.                                |the collected poems of EDNA
                                              |ST VINCENT MILLAY..
grante@rosemount.com                          |BACKWARDS!!
