Greg Hendershott wrote on 10/24/2015 10:43 AM:
p.s. If people read that (even just section 7.7), and there's still a debate? Then probably the only resolution would be a compromise that leaves everyone equally unhappy. Like say :#:keyword:#: ;)
I linked the paper on Oct 15, though it got lost in the volume. Quoting from section 7.7:
We can offer no rationale that will resolve the debate. We chose #: because it broke no existing code and because at least one author likes how it stands out. An informal poll among PLT Scheme users suggested roughly equal support for all three choices (prefix #:, prefix :, and suffix :) with a slightly higher preference for #:—possibly reflecting the syntax that is already in place. In any case, PLT Scheme’s #lang notation would allow future modules to be written using a different syntax without affecting old modules.
The rationale for `#:`, aside from a subjective visual-perceptual call, was that it "broke no existing code".
As I said on Oct 15, speaking in retrospect:
The Scheme situation is discouraging, and I'm glad that Racket (PLT Scheme) went ahead and did something. However, I wish we all had cared slightly less about R5RS compatibility and such back then (especially since R5RS compatibility has been abandoned in much larger ways in Racket today, such as in pair mutability). Perhaps I could've been using colon-prefix happily the last several years. And also, no one would have introduced the few problematic colon-symbols that now have to be considered before adding colon-prefix keywords today.
I don't like the `#lang` option, mostly because of the effective fragmentation of the language that the community uses informally *outside of* modules.
Though Matthias points out that fragmentation happens, and he distinguishes linguistic fragmentation from social fragmentation, with the latter sounding worse.
I suppose that `#lang paddle` could correct Racket's linguistic naughtiness, while somehow retaining a cohesive social unit, but you know that's eventually going to come up in therapy.
Neil V. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Racket Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
