Paul Schlie <xxxxxx@comcast.net> writes:

> There's a distinct advantage to keeping the character set in which the
> language is specified in (and is capable of processing itself), distinct
> from the character set it can utilize to process arbitrary language text,
> as otherwise it becomes too easy to then rationalize utilizing characters
> specified within the broader character set within program code, which would
> then truly needlessly limit the code's portability, from both a machine as
> well as human perspective. (As I don't believe it's productive to anyone to
> attempt to interpret code utilizing symbols written/spelled in arbitrary
> languages and corresponding character sets; but is clearly useful to enable
> portable programs to be written to process such arbitrary text).

Then these little program-representing thingies should not be called
"characters".  I don't know what the right word is, but it should be
miles away from "character".  If this is the interpretation you wish
to offer of what is called a "character" in R5RS, then we have a
problem: Scheme *has no* characters of any sort, though it does have a
simulacrum which is good enough for implementing the Scheme language.

But it seems obvious to me that this is *not* what was in the minds of
the R5RS authors.  I think they conceived of the R5RS character as not
merely a thing for writing Scheme programs, but as roughly the "same
thing" as char in C or Pascal.

Thomas