FWIW, an unreleased Racket mode for Emacs (which did fast incremental
lexing, and some higher parsing[1]) intentionally colored the entire
expression after `#;` as a comment. I don't recall whether I decided to
have it skip over the commented expression for sibling-level sexp-based
editor operations, like move-point-to-start-of-next-expression, though
it probably did sexp operations and matching paren-highlighting while
inside the commented expression.
I considered `#;` a convenience for quickly commenting out a sexp, since
that's how I recall seeing it used. Though sexp-aware editor commands
can easily make quick sexp commenting and uncommenting easy using `;;`,
including simple automatic unsnuggling and resnuggling of close-parens.
I didn't realize that some people wanted to treat `#;` as meaningful
code-like sexp text that's not actually code. (For pedagogic purposes,
I suppose it makes sense to be clear that not all code-level-ish
abstractions&artifacts in the process are code, so maybe you use a
comment in a beginner `#lang` for that, even if you want to use a sexp
too. But, for later purposes, maybe you actually want that particular
sexp thing to be code in a syntax extension or `#lang`. Then you get
Contracts, Typed Racket, or embedded API docs, or embedded
specification, or something else.)
Incidentally, a pertinent bit of the Emacs mode tests (below) makes
framework-restricted coders cry (in that case, the framework was based
on regexps, legacy kludgey character syntax classes, and a few fixed
concepts of syntax). But those tears turn into ones of joy, when the
coder remembers that they are actually a CS-educated software engineer,
who can make a technical assessment and business case that the framework
is a barrier to smash, and roll up their sleeves, for some some good
old-fashioned automata theory, algorithm design, and efficient programming.
(insert "(define (f x #:y (y 0) #:z (z 0))\n")
(insert " (xxx '''(yyy (\"(\"\n")
(insert " ;; (\n")
(insert " (zzz #\\( ppp)\n")
(insert " #| #| ( |# ( |#\n")
(insert " qqq)\n")
(insert " #;#;(1\n")
(insert " 2)\n")
(insert " (3 '(4 5) 6)\n")
(insert " (n)\n")
(insert " rrr)\n")
(insert " #;)\n")
(insert " sss))\n")
[1] It got mothballed when my book was, the pre-Git SCM repo was lost,
the only known survivor of the main file was in a checkout workspace, in
middle of an architecture change, and I don't have free person-days to
reconstruct the prior/next version. Meow was a big advance beyond Quack
(the original poor substitute for DrScheme), but it didn't do the great
things Greg's `racket-mode` now does, anyway.
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