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

[William D Clinger]

Carl Eastland wrote:
> I would hope part of the
> purpose of square brackets in R6RS is to improve portability of code
> from Scheme implementations that already use it, and to preserve the
> uses people have already found for square brackets.

The problem with that argument is that square brackets
have been used for a wide variety of purposes.  The
current draft R6RS proposes to standardize on the most
trivial and redundant of those uses, and to forbid all
of the truly useful things that have been done with
square brackets.

Were this an isolated issue, and the worst problem in
the draft report, we would be in great shape.  Alas,
it exemplifies the general drift of the draft: useful
extensions are banned, but trivialities are required.

Will