Re: JACAL, scm

[Tom Lord]

   On Mon, Sep 24, 2001 at 10:04:06PM -0700, Tom Lord wrote:
   >  * A few times we've asked some RnRS authors why '()' and '#f' need to be
   >  * different.  In each case they mumbled something unconvincing about 
   >  * compilation and type checking, then quickly changed the topic.

   It's useful for something like assq-ref. You may want to know whether
   you stored an empty list, or didn't store anything. An empty list is
   still a list.


I agree -- it is a trade-off between programming idioms.  Other idioms
work better if () and #f are the same, as has long been traditional
among lisps.

Consistency within GNU is the larger reason to prefer to make () and
#f the same in Guile.

-t