[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] please make square brackets more useful

[John Cowan]

Jonathan Rees wrote:

> There is a feud between a faction that wants to be able to enlist two
> distinct kinds of brackets to help beginners to learn Scheme, and/or
> to help anyone to write what they consider to be clearer code, and a
> faction that is horrified at the loss of 1/64 of the valuable ASCII
> character space for a purpose that to them isn't justified, preventing
> the use of brackets for legitimate extensions to Scheme.
> 
> No one will change anyone else's mind, since this conflict has been
> raging unresolved since the 1970's.

I think the second faction's point is now moot, however, since in R6RS
there are no longer any characters available for user or implementor
extension of the lexical syntax, at least in standard-conforming mode
(whether signaled by #!r6rs, an implementation option, or both).  Every
Unicode (a fortiori, every ASCII) character either has a defined use or
is forbidden.  That being so, there is no reason other than parsimony
to avoid defining square brackets.

(Apologies if I have already made this point in a previous posting.)

-- 
All Gaul is divided into three parts: the part          John Cowan
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that cooks with olive oil, and the part that            cowan at ccil.org
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