PS Admittedly, the issue is very subtle, which is why the fundamental
criticism is not against a special form as introduced by SRFI 17, but
against naming it `set!'.

Am Fr., 19. Aug. 2022 um 12:42 Uhr schrieb Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen
<xxxxxx@gmail.com>:
>
> Am Fr., 19. Aug. 2022 um 12:25 Uhr schrieb Lassi Kortela <xxxxxx@lassi.io>:
> >
> > > See the message at
> > > https://srfi-email.schemers.org/srfi-17/msg/2778561/  and the following
> > > discussion for why there are good arguments against a SRFI-17-style
> > > addition to Scheme.  I definitely subscribe to these arguments. Per,
> > > the author of SRFI 17, does not. But we already had such a discussion
> > > and continuing it should happen somewhere else.
> >
> > There are two distinct questions here:
> >
> > 1) Should set! be able to set things other than variables?
> >
> > 2) Should references/places be first-class or implied?
> >
> > By my reading, your argument is that Scheme is cleaner (from a
> > functional programming standpoint?) if references/places are first class.
>
> A locative is a first-class object.
>
> A place would be, like a variable, not first-class.
>
> "set!" in Scheme is syntax and does not mutate its argument (which is
> some syntax) but the location which the syntactic argument references.
>
> "set-car!" (and friends) are procedures taking a first-class
> (evaluated) argument and mutating it.
>
> It's not about that all entities should be first-class. Variables
> aren't, for example.
>
> As I don't want to repeat all arguments, let me cite one I find
> compelling: https://srfi-email.schemers.org/srfi-17/msg/2778611/.