[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] Add symbol=? and boolean=?

[Aubrey Jaffer]

 | Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2007 09:30:36 -0800
 | From: Per Bothner <per at bothner.com>
 | 
 | Carl Eastlund wrote:
 | > I'm not sure I understand this claim.  I do not view eq? as a hack.
 | > It's not (solely) intended to be "equal? lite", a faster version of
 | > equal? restricted to "small" values.
 | 
 | One could argue that eq? tests for "object identity".  However,
 | (one could also argue) that booleans, symbols, and numbers are
 | immutable values, not objects, and so object identity is a
 | meaningless concept.  The reason we have eq? defined on symbols and
 | boolean (not it is not defined on numbers) is because Scheme has
 | rather mushy semantics when it comes to values versus objects.

To my thinking this puts the cart before the horse.  The purpose of
symbols is to give us named objects which are EQ?.