Who has
signoff on changing text (as opposed to removing it)? The original
SRFI author? This list? Or...?
Since you are preparing this book and you are in conformity with the SRFI license, you do. Of course we have the right to complain (as does the original author) if you change the meaning.
I'm not sure I know the difference. If I were asked to articulate
one, it would be something like “objects are things popularized by
Alan Kay, while values have been around since the earliest
programming languages.” I'm uncomfortable with the current
situation, but in the absence of a consensus, I'll leave it alone.
"Object" is old in the Lisp world, although in Lisp 1.5 it apparently meant "symbol". Googling for ["Lisp" "object" -CLOS] returns lots of uses of "object" meaning "value" for both CL and Elisp.
I think I'll put a sentence or two in the Introduction saying this, and pointing out that an implementation can be Red-compliant [sic] without implementing these features. Thus portable programs should eschew them.
You can and should say that about optional features. But implementers must implement deprecated features, and users can certainly use them as long as they realize the features are not future-proof (nor is anything, really).
And now I'm now going to start on the Tangerine Edition.
Our hero!
John Cowan
http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan xxxxxx@ccil.orgHistorians aren't constantly confronted with people who carry on
self-confidently about the rule against adultery in the sixth amendment to
the Declamation of Independence, as written by Benjamin Hamilton. Computer
scientists aren't always having to correct people who make bold assertions
about the value of Objectivist Programming, as examplified in the HCNL
entities stored in Relaxational Databases. --Mark Liberman