Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!rice!news From: matthias@leto.rice.edu (Matthias Felleisen) Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme Subject: Re: What is a Scheme? Message-ID: <1990Aug24.144718.25596@rice.edu> Date: 24 Aug 90 14:47:18 GMT References: <9008221644.aa03978@mc.lcs.mit.edu> <1990Aug23.020704.19833@rice.edu> Sender: news@rice.edu (News) Organization: Rice University, Houston Lines: 23 In article jinx@zurich.ai.mit.edu writes: > > Guillermo J. Rozas writes that "since [Scheme] is such that even > numbers and strings (and pairs, etc.) can be built out of the very > powerful glue of procedures." I disagree. Please show us how to build > numbers such that number? and procedure? work and our programs still > work, too. > >You did not read my message carefully. > 1. I responded to your claim that numbers which as far as I am concerned includes number? can be written in your "Scheme core". I am happy to see that you know that this is impossible. 2. The original question was "what is a Scheme". I answered to this question and interpreted it as "what is the essence of Scheme". I agree that one could interpret the question as "what is the part of Scheme that is most interesting to you". As far as I am concerned and as I mentioned before, the most interesting things about Scheme are call/cc and first-class continuations. -- Matthias