Re: [Chicken-users] New immediate values (was: DBI)

[Thomas Chust]

On 29. Februar 2008 09:24:07 -0500 John Cowan <address@hidden> wrote:

> Alaric Snell-Pym scripsit:
>
> > > Gensym values aren't disjoint *in type* from anything else.
> >
> > Ah, but disjointness in value is all that's required...
>
> Technically yes, but most of us find predicates like number?, string?,
> and symbol? rather handy all the same, and don't want NULL mixed up
> with them. [...]

Hello,

this is really a question of taste, isn't it? You could just as well argue 
that a NULL value should be of a type that is a subtype of every other 
existing type but contains no other concrete instances, which would imply 
that all the type predicates should return #t when applied to the NULL 
value. This makes a lot of sense when the NULL value is used to indicate 
the absence of an object reference and is the way it is handled in several 
object oriented languages.

cu,
Thomas