Re: bindings and assignments (was: Re: continuations)

[John Clements <address@hidden>]

On Wednesday, August 13, 2003, at 10:53  PM, Shriram Krishnamurthi 
wrote:

> Vadim Nasardinov wrote:
>
>> If you don't use the "final" keyword, then the variable can be
>> reassigned (in the set! sense).
>>
>> Does that qualify as a syntactic distinction?
>
> I'd forgotten about this use of "final" (maybe because I don't find
> the pun quite so evident).  Yes, that would qualify as a syntactic
> distinction.

I respectfully disagree.  Insofar as the 'final' keyword may also be 
applied to an object's member variables to prevent them from being 
mutated, I believe that it _increases_ the mental conflation of 
bindings and fields.

I am disappointed but not surprised as I read the (PLDI 200) C-- 
semantics to see that even at an abstract syntax level, Ramsey et. al. 
choose to use a single form for set! and set-box!.  Of course, this 
means that he must have two different reduction rules for the same 
abstract syntax form... one if the assignment is to a variable, one if 
it's to a memory location.  Bleah!

john