On Sat, Jul 22, 2017 at 8:00 AM, Arthur A. Gleckler <xxxxxx@speechcode.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 22, 2017 at 1:48 AM, Alex Shinn <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
 
It appears to be a purely editorial change by Arthur to "improve the explanation of where definitions can occur."  From that commit message, I'd guess the intent was to make clear that definitions may be expanded from other syntax in the body.  Arthur?  Claiming it means the extent of the body itself is in question sounds like too far a stretch, and couldn't really be applied to let[rec]-syntax without also being applied to let, which is clearly broken.

I don't remember the context.  I don't seem to have a copy of the repo any more, and would like to get a new copy to put this in context.

Thank to Alex, I have a copy of the r7rs-wg1 Mercurial repository again.  Using that, I was able to find the date of the change and track down the related messages.  (See below.)

So with the "Note that..." sentence, I was trying to explain that the body containing the definition might be generated by another macro.

Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 01:23:21 -0400
Subject: Re: Two to go

John Cowan wrote:

| Arthur A. Gleckler scripsit:
| 
| > Definitions can occur at the
| > beginning of a \hyper{body} (that is, the body of a \ide{lambda},
| > \ide{let}, \ide{let*}, \ide{letrec}, \ide{letrec*},
| > \ide{let-values}, \ide{let-values*}, \ide{let-syntax}, \ide{letrec-syntax},
| > \ide{parameterize}, \ide{guard}, or \ide{case-lambda}
| > expression or that of a definition of an appropriate form).
| > 
| > 
| > What does "an appropriate form" mean?  I'm reading it to mean "definitions
| > can occur at the beginning of the body of ... an appropriate form."
| 
| I think the idea is that if a macro expands into something with a body,
| then the macro has a body as well.  I agree it's poorly worded, so go
| ahead and fix it.

...

Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 19:57:45 -0700
Subject: Re: Two to go

Arthur A. Gleckler wrote:
| 
| On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 10:23 PM, John Cowan <xxxxxx@mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
| 
| 
| > I think the idea is that if a macro expands into something with a body,
| > then the macro has a body as well.  I agree it's poorly worded, so go
| > ahead and fix it.
| >
| 
| Here's what I replaced it with:
| 
| Definitions can occur at the
| beginning of a \hyper{body} (that is, the body of a \ide{lambda},
| \ide{let}, \ide{let*}, \ide{letrec}, \ide{letrec*},
| \ide{let-values}, \ide{let-values*}, \ide{let-syntax}, \ide{letrec-syntax},
| \ide{parameterize}, \ide{guard}, or \ide{case-lambda}).  Note that
| such a body may not be apparent until after expansion of other syntax.