[R6RS] safe and unsafe; declarations

William D Clinger will at ccs.neu.edu
Sat Mar 4 13:32:32 EST 2006


Kent wrote:
> One editor's feeping creature is another editor's way...

Absolutely.  I was just expressing my opinion.

> The programmer can make the library unsafe anyway, even without
> identifier-priority.

Right.  What bothers me is the idea that any macro I import
from a library might transform the (safe 3) declarations in
my code into (safe 0) declarations.  After thinking about it
some more, I realize that syntax-case allows library macros
to do that even without your proposed identifier-priority.
Ouch.

What bothers me the most, though, is my concern that unsafe
mode will be perceived as a major misfeature of the R6RS,
and not as an improvement over the R5RS.  In my view, the
point of unsafe mode should be to allow the R6RS to talk
as though certain exceptions are actually required, not to
serve as a constant reminder that you can't rely on that.

Will



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