[r6rs-discuss] Re-hashing hygiene

[Thomas Lord]

On Fri, 2009-09-11 at 18:48 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> Thomas Lord scripsit:
> 
> > I happen to also like uninterned symbols for other reasons - they
> > are just a convenient data structure that is usually easy to provide.
> > They are not essential to macro systems in Scheme, though.
> 
> I'm interested in this.  What do uninterned symbols do that strings
> do not, other than answering #t to "symbol?"?


In Scheme, one difference of significance is mutability
(yes I know you like to tilt against that windmill).
Another is what `equal?' does.  Another is a convenient 
(non-essential but convenient) disjointness.

I don't propose them for a core of Scheme.  I think
they are a nice feature to have around.

-t