Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU!andy From: andy@DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme Subject: Re: Order of evaluation (was Re: evaluating () should be an error Message-ID: <1991Apr8.184433.21719@neon.Stanford.EDU> Date: 8 Apr 91 18:44:33 GMT References: <6260003@otter.hpl.hp.com> <1991Apr5.110615.20429@news.cs.indiana.edu> Sender: news@neon.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System) Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University Lines: 25 In article <1991Apr5.110615.20429@news.cs.indiana.edu> hieb@heston.cs.indiana.edu (Robert Hieb) writes: >This would also tend to catch reliance on argument evaluation order. >It is natural for a naive programmer (and who isn't at times?) to >assume a left-to-right order of evaluation. However, programs that >actually depend on such an order wouldn't work, and thus the dependency >would be flushed out. If the order is defined, then why is it worthwhile to "flush out" reliance on that definition? The difference that this illustrates is not unlike the difference between someone who collects tools based on their beauty and someone who measures "tool beauty" in terms of function. There are tools that satisfy both, but most don't. Yes, I know that the trend is towards unspecified argument order. That being the case, the arguments for it should be especially compelling, certainly more so than "everyone else is jumping off that bridge too". -andy -- UUCP: {arpa gateways, sun, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!neon.stanford.edu!andy ARPA: andy@neon.stanford.edu BELLNET: (415) 723-3088