Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!mintaka!ai-lab!zurich.ai.mit.edu!jinx
From: jinx@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Guillermo J. Rozas)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
Subject: Re: Named constants in Scheme
Message-ID: <JINX.91May21191708@chamarti.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 21 May 91 23:17:08 GMT
References: <chip.674143084@soi> <1991May15.172635.18635@Think.COM> <chip.674492719@soi>
	<1991May18.203022.9325@snitor.uucp>
Sender: news@ai.mit.edu
Reply-To: jinx@zurich.ai.mit.edu
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Lines: 12
In-reply-to: doug@snitor.uucp's message of 18 May 91 20:30:22 GMT


    Many procedural languages (eg, Algol 68, Pascal, C, Common Lisp)
    support named constants; why not Scheme?

Some of us in the community, and in the reports authors group, do not
like having different classes of variables.  We believe that all
variables are created equal, and thus all of them are inherently
mutable.

In addition, we believe that user programs have precedence over the
system, and thus if a program decides to define its own CAR variable
and use it in whatever way it pleases, it should be allowed.