xxxxxx@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de (Michael Sperber [Mr. Preprocessor]) writes:
>
> [ snipped discussion about education ]

hi there, all of you.  I am but a humble programmer, 5 years away from
the academia, and here is my view on the subject of "set!"
overloading.  if you are only interested in academically rigorous
discussion, don't bother reading further.

1. what I, in my naivete about PL design, take "set!" to be?

(set! <name> <value>) translates, in my mind, to: dear Scheme, please
make it so that next time I say <name>, and <name> denotes the same
thing as now, I get <value>.

from the above, the <name> -> <form> progression is quite natural.

perhaps if "set!" were not called "set!", but instead were called
"lexical-rebind!", the translation would be different.

2. do I like the fact that "set!" is called as it's called?

yes, very much.

3. do I have trouble undertanding call-by-value?

no.

4. what the present debate is about?

taste, culture and pedagogical qualities.

5. can a language be elegant from a humble practitioner's point of
   view and at the same time good for teaching?

not necessarily.  for example, I would consider different set!'s for
lexical bindings and data to be silly and distracting.  once you have
no trouble walking, a walking cane only obstructs you.

6. so what do we do about this SRFI?

it appears that we have two camps, which are both informed, and which
agree to disagree (well, I agree to disagree with Shriram and Mike,
I don't know if they agree to disagree with me, but I hope so).  this
is SRFI, so informed disagreement should be fine, right?  right?

> Cheers =8-} Mike

--mike

--
There are few personal problems which can't be solved by the suitable
application of high explosives.