Re: [Chicken-hackers] Clean versus pure in types.db

[John Cowan]

Felix scripsit:

> I used "pure" only half-heartedly. Strictly speaking a "pure" function should
> not even throw an error, the "pure" meaning: this procedure will not have
> any effect whatsoever, regardless of arguments (so it can be removed if the
> result is unused). "(length 42)" will signal an error, so it is not pure.

Frankly, if it were treated as pure I doubt if any Real World programs would
be affected.  I've never had much sympathy for the CL and R6RS viewpoint that
programmers should be able to count on a run-time exception being raised
when they've done something silly.

-- 
Income tax, if I may be pardoned for saying so,         John Cowan
is a tax on income.  --Lord Macnaghten (1901)           address@hidden