[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] Confusing comparison with Pascal call-by-reference

Mikael Tillenius mti at tillenius.com
Sun Feb 18 06:47:01 EST 2007


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This message is a formal comment which was submitted to formal-comment at r6rs.org, following the requirements described at: http://www.r6rs.org/process.html
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Submitter: Mikael Tillenius mti at tillenius.com
Issue: Defect
Priority: Minor
Component: Concepts
Version: 5.92
Summary: Confusing comparison with Pascal call-by-reference

Description: In section 1, top of right column on page 6 of the report, 
argument passing is discussed. Quote "Note that call-by-value refers to 
a different distinction between by-value and by-reference passing in 
Pascal. In Scheme, all data structures are passed by reference." This 
seems to imply that Scheme passes arguments similar to how Pascals 
call-by-reference. This is not true, for example call-by-reference would 
make it possible to implement a procedure "swap" so that a call "(swap a 
b)" would swap the values of "a" and "b".

Proposal: Remove both sentences quoted above, or at least the last one.

/Mikael





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