Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!bu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ai-lab!zurich.ai.mit.edu!jaffer From: jaffer@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Aubrey Jaffer) Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme Subject: Re: Fixing the order of evaluation. Minimizing the unexpected. Message-ID: Date: 5 Apr 91 05:27:35 GMT References: <9104041629.AA19876@schizo> Sender: news@ai.mit.edu Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab. Lines: 13 In-reply-to: gjc@mitech.COM's message of 4 Apr 91 15:24:09 GMT gjc and others suggest fixing the order of evaluation. If this order is fixed Scheme will lose the ability to be easily run on multiple processors. This will confine scheme to the dustbin of history. As was pointed out earlier, the order of evaluation of only occasionally trips up programmers. I think this is a reasonable price to pay for Schemeing into the 21st century. The difference between the current situation and totally unspecified order (possibly simultaneous) for arguments seems like not to jarring a change. Someone posted an article a while ago about doing this and introducing semaphore primitives to Scheme. I think this is the way we should be going; not fixed order.