Per Bothner scripsit:

> It's a choice bwteeen:
> (define (square-sum (x :: <flonum>) (y :: <flonum>))
>   (+ (* x x) (* y y)))
> or:
> (define (square-sum x y)
>   (fl+ (fl* x x) (fl* y)))
> If you have type specifiers, you don't need the separate operation
> names.  And type specifiers are much to be preferred.  After all
> if Scheme is a teaching language, we want to encourage our students
> to use type declarations, I think.

Unless you want to add overloading to Scheme, you have just pushed off the
problem from the predefined names to the user-defined names, as the above
will need to be complemented by a version of square-sum that does fixnums.

--
You're a brave man! Go and break through the            John Cowan
lines, and remember while you're out there              xxxxxx@reutershealth.com
risking life and limb through shot and shell,           www.ccil.org/~cowan
we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are!        www.reutershealth.com
        --Rufus T. Firefly