Re: silliness

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

Tom Lord <address@hidden> writes:

>      Moreover, in no standard of Scheme has it ever been acceptible
>      for nil to match either () or #f.  What do you want nil to be?
> 
> You are confused about how the word "nil" has been used on this list.
> I believe you are incorrect about the history of RnRS, as well, though
> I don't have the source materials handy.

I'm not talking about the list, I'm asking a question of you.  In
Scheme and Lisp, there is a symbol 'nil.  

Scheme and Lisp evaluate the following form differently (manifesting
the ()/#f issue), and ignoring the difference between "eq?" and "eq"

  (if (eq? '() (not 3)) 'equal 'notequal)

Similarly, Scheme and Lisp also evaluate the following two forms
differently:

  (if (eq? '() 'nil) 'equal 'notequal)
  (if (eq? 'nil (not 3)) 'equal 'notequal)

In both those cases, Scheme reports notequal and Lisp reports equal.  

What do you want the return values of those to be?  If you want to
unify Scheme and Lisp with regards to #f/(), what will you do with
'nil?

Note that jimb's solution cheats the Scheme standard here, treating
nil as equivalent to #f.  Is that what you want to do as well?