Re: What is a lightweight language

[Dan Weinreb <address@hidden>]

   Date: Sun,  9 Dec 2001 00:35:17 -0800 (PST)
   From: Michael Vanier <mvanier@bbb.caltech.edu>

   > Is that really all you need?  What happened to call/cc?  What happened
   > to integers and strings and vectors?  What about "cond" and "let" and
   > "apply"?

   "cond" can be defined as a macro if you have "if".  "let" can be defined as
   a macro if you have "lambda".  
(Oops, yes, of course, sorry.)

   As for numbers, strings, and vectors, there is an interesting point here.
   These are built in to most languages (though strings are sometimes not
   built-in e.g. in C/C++).  In scheme, they are built-in from the standpoint
   of parsing, but the functions that operate on them are procedures which
   happen to be built-in.  So "+" is just a built-in procedure in scheme,
   just like "sqrt".  

Yes, but my point was that you can hardly say that you have implemented
Scheme if you don't have "+".