Re: XML as a transition to s-expr

[Michael Vanier <address@hidden>]

> From: Dorai Sitaram <ds26@gte.com>
> Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 11:53:57 -0500 (EST)
> 
> Michael Vanier writes
> > > From: Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net>
> > > 
> > > I'm going to risk flamage and say that Scheme (not MZScheme or BobScheme
> > > but R5RS Scheme) does have usability problems. I came to that conclusion
> > > watching the DSSSL experiment. It looks to me as if you are going to
> > > replicate the experiment with BRL.
> > > 
> > >  * the parens are poor for error reporting. You could imagine a Lisp
> > > that would report syntax errors much more reliably:
> > 
> > I agree.  In mzscheme you can use [] or {} as substitutes for () that have
> > to match their counterparts.  This improves the situation considerably.
> > But I wish there was a more comprehensive way to (optionally) specify end
> > markers in lisp (e.g. ".if" to end if).
> 
> In many Scheme impls including MzScheme, you could use
> the nicely clunky #|fi|# for this purpose.
> Unfortunately, #|...|# isn't in R*RS (yet?).  It
> is standard CL.  
> 
> Or did you want something that errors on
> mismatch, even though it is optional?  
> 

Yes, just like mzscheme will bitch at you if you try to match { with ).
Otherwise it's no better than a comment.  BTW I didn't know about #|fi|# in
mzscheme; thanks for the tip!

Mike