On 03/12/2013 07:51 PM, David A. Wheeler wrote:
> Yes, that's right.  Without collecting lists,
> those are the only options... and that's the motivation.
>
> We could change the notation, but the changes look ugly.
> The obvious alternatives for the notation are:
> 1. Make the REPL and file syntax different, like Python.
> I think this would be a mistake; people often copy-and-paste
> from files to the REPL.
> 2. Don't stop on blank lines, but that change would make
> interactive use much less pleasant.
>
> It's really not a problem when the whole sequence fits on a screen.
> But when things get long, it starts to get ugly.
I think this is the important part of the motivation.  The first time I
read the SRFI, it seemed like sweet-expressions should already be able
to handle this situation.  In addition, having experience with Python,
it didn't seem like a problem.  Only after seeing the 3 awkward ways to
do it without <* *>, and how Python treats files and repls differently,
did I begin to see how they were useful.  I'll put this into a draft
edit of that section of the SRFI.

Thanks,
Dave