Scheme language standardization process
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 11/10/2012 02:24 AM, Alex Shinn wrote: > On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 7:21 PM, Takashi Kato <ktakashi@x> > wrote: >> If implementations must support the same range both string and >> character, it seems much simpler and have more consistency, IMHO. >> (of course it doesn't matter which range it follows.) > The inconsistency already existed separately from #\null. It > existed historically from characters with buckey-bits (i.e. > keystrokes represented as characters). It exists now in several > implementations which support Unicode characters but not Unicode > strings. It's an artifact of a representation choice (null-terminated strings). Because that representation choice facilitates call-level interoperation with languages that use null-terminated strings (specifically C) requiring that implementations fix the inconsistency is likely to result in the implementors having to make a choice between conforming with the standard and invalidating their existing foreign-call interface. I agree with Takahashi that it is an ugly inconsistency and not consistent with blandly stating that strings are sequences of characters. Ideally, and as the world moves further to full Unicode acceptance, we should produce a standard that has strings *be* simply sequences of characters. But unless we have a consensus among most implementors that it is time to fix their foreign-call interfaces with respect to string representation anyway, it is probably not appropriate to require strings to be able to contain #/null at this time. I would say that making a decision, and potentially a requirement, as to whether a string can contain *any* character including #/null and any Unicode character, is an appropriate issue to raise in the the not-yet-started R8 effort. Bear -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJQnjHOAAoJEAOzWkqOibfNxiQH/3gjK+LrQY7SnR2E7tYvGJ8r fxWY8ZrPGuqgdoQmjoTMnMGFPDoDBhEmeRGNzAz5Ipp0v/x9CIh0s2wGuGH2nvh9 C4Gja2fSt9GNxGyVeScKnLNAKNbVWEm1zHhZh79HS39YUyqW4c0zV8XXP/0JuLFy eWuaTF0c/rqT4Siu60qGf5ZwIUL0DtN2fHVMKpetMMVubySyHKpgFtO4nAphJ1ok rRfnPaFXEYzm2umnpNc7K53XWGEPCrIlxeESzBnVff8PWM1GJYFmMGSbQeVZSCyq eUkF+Ziu7U3jL78Qpa35u0b69eJwLT41z2VBi/vmAziNHU4X28KvJFm/r/dVnc4= =a3pH -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Scheme-reports mailing list Scheme-reports@x http://lists.scheme-reports.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scheme-reports