Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!spdcc!merk!alliant!linus!guttman From: guttman@mitre.org (Joshua D. Guttman) Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme Subject: Scheme's case (vs. select) Message-ID: Date: 4 May 90 15:35:44 GMT Sender: guttman@linus.UUCP Distribution: comp Organization: Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA. Lines: 12 Why is it that Scheme has the case statement, which does not evaluate its keys? Wouldn't it be a great deal more useful to have instead a select statement (as does T) which is exactly the same except that it *does* evaluate its keys? After all, you can simulate the case using the select by strewing around the needed quotation marks, but obviously not conversely. And as for smart compilers, if a compiler does something clever for case, why not have it do just the same clever thing for select if it observes that all of the keys are constants? Josh