[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] Identifiers beginning with "->" considered useless

[John Cowan]

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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: John Cowan
Email address: cowan at ccil.org
Issue type: Defect
Priority: Minor
Component:  Lexical syntax
Report version: 5.93
Summary: Identifiers beginning with "->" considered useless.

R5.93RS extends the lexical syntax of R5RS identifiers to allow
them to begin with "->", presumably for the sake of the R5.91
procedures "->exact" and "->inexact".  The former names of these
procedures, "exact->inexact" and "inexact->exact", were misleading,
since they accepted both exact and inexact arguments.  However,
5.93 renamed these "exact" and "inexact" per formal comment #203.

I believe that the principles given in that comment are of a general
nature such that names like "->foo" are always better given as "foo".
While I am no fan of arbitrary restrictions on names, I am not in favor
of arbitrary exceptions either.  I suggest that "->" prefixes should be
removed for R6RS.

-- 
LEAR: Dost thou call me fool, boy?      John Cowan
FOOL: All thy other titles              http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
             thou hast given away:      cowan at ccil.org
      That thou wast born with.