unofficial mirror of guile-devel@gnu.org 
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
To: guile-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Guile: What's wrong with this?
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:41:33 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <8762grkdo2.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 1325646278.7597.YahooMailNeo@web37902.mail.mud.yahoo.com

Mike Gran <spk121@yahoo.com> writes:

>>   In many systems it is desirable for constants (i.e. the values of literal
>>   expressions) to reside in read-only-memory.  To express this, it is
>>   convenient to imagine that every object that denotes locations is
>>   associated with a flag telling whether that object is mutable or immutable.
>>   In such systems literal constants and the strings returned by
>>   `symbol->string' are immutable objects, while all objects created by
>>   the other procedures listed in this report are mutable.  It is an error
>>   to attempt to store a new value into a location that is denoted by an
>>   immutable object.
>> 
>> In Guile this has been the case since commit
>> 190d4b0d93599e5b58e773dc6375054c3a6e3dbf.
>> 
>> The reason for this is that Guile’s compiler tries hard to avoid
>> duplicating constants in the output bytecode.  Thus, modifying a
>> constant would actually change all other occurrences of that constant in
>> the code, making it a non-constant.  ;-)
>
> This is a terrible example of the RnRS promoting some strange idea of
> mathematical purity over being useful.
>  
> The idea that the correct way to initialize a string is
> (define x (string-copy "string")) is awkward.  "string" is a read-only
> but copying it makes it modifyiable?  Copying implies mutability?
>  
> Copying doesn't imply modifying mutability in any other data type.

Huh?

(set-car! '(4 5) 3) => bad
(set-car! (list-copy '(4 5)) 3) => ok

Similar with literal vectors.

Why should strings be different here?

-- 
David Kastrup




  parent reply	other threads:[~2012-01-04  9:41 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 117+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2012-01-03  4:08 What's wrong with this? Bruce Korb
2012-01-03 15:03 ` Mike Gran
2012-01-03 16:26   ` Guile: " Bruce Korb
2012-01-03 16:30     ` Mike Gran
2012-01-03 22:24     ` Ludovic Courtès
2012-01-03 23:15       ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-03 23:33         ` Ludovic Courtès
2012-01-04  0:55           ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-04  3:12             ` Noah Lavine
2012-01-04 17:37               ` bytevector -- was: " Bruce Korb
2012-01-04 21:17             ` Ludovic Courtès
2012-01-04 22:36               ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-05  0:01                 ` Ludovic Courtès
2012-01-05 18:36                   ` non-reproduction of initial issue -- was: " Bruce Korb
2012-01-05 18:50                     ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-04 12:19         ` Ian Price
2012-01-04 17:16           ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-04 17:21             ` Andy Wingo
2012-01-04 17:39             ` David Kastrup
2012-01-04 21:52             ` Ian Price
2012-01-04 22:18               ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-04 23:22                 ` Mike Gran
2012-01-04 23:59                 ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-05 17:22                   ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-05 18:13                     ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-05 19:02                       ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-05 20:24                     ` David Kastrup
2012-01-05 22:42                     ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-06  1:02                       ` Mike Gran
2012-01-06  1:41                         ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-06  2:38                           ` Noah Lavine
2012-01-06 13:37                           ` Mike Gran
2012-01-06 14:11                             ` David Kastrup
2012-01-06 18:13                             ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-06 19:06                               ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-06 19:19                                 ` David Kastrup
2012-01-06 20:03                                   ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-07 16:13                                 ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-07 17:35                                   ` mutable interfaces - was: " Bruce Korb
2012-01-07 17:47                                     ` David Kastrup
2012-01-07 18:30                                     ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-07 18:55                                       ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-06 22:23                               ` Guile BUG: " Bruce Korb
2012-01-06 23:11                                 ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-06 23:35                                   ` Andy Wingo
2012-01-06 23:41                                   ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-07 15:00                                     ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-07 15:27                                       ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-07 16:38                                         ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-07 17:39                                           ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-09 15:41                                             ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-09 17:27                                               ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-09 18:32                                                 ` Andy Wingo
2012-01-09 19:48                                                   ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-07 15:47                                       ` David Kastrup
2012-01-07 17:07                                         ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-07 14:35                                   ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-07 15:20                                     ` Mike Gran
2012-01-07 22:25                                     ` Ludovic Courtès
2012-01-10  9:13                                     ` The empty string and other empty strings Ludovic Courtès
2012-01-10 11:28                                       ` Mike Gran
2012-01-10 13:03                                         ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-10 13:09                                           ` Mike Gran
2012-01-10 15:41                                           ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-10 15:48                                             ` David Kastrup
2012-01-10 16:15                                               ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-12 22:33                                                 ` Ludovic Courtès
2012-01-13  9:27                                                   ` David Kastrup
2012-01-13 16:39                                                     ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-13 17:36                                                       ` David Kastrup
2012-01-16  8:26                                                       ` Marijn
2012-01-16  8:47                                                         ` David Kastrup
2012-01-20 21:31                                                       ` Andy Wingo
2012-01-10 14:10                                         ` David Kastrup
2012-01-10 12:21                                       ` Mike Gran
2012-01-10 12:27                                       ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-10 16:34                                         ` Ludovic Courtès
2012-01-10 17:04                                           ` David Kastrup
2012-01-06 23:28                                 ` Guile BUG: What's wrong with this? Bruce Korb
2012-01-07 20:57                           ` Guile: " Ian Price
2012-01-08  5:05                             ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-06  9:23                         ` David Kastrup
2012-01-05  7:22                 ` David Kastrup
2012-01-04 22:46             ` Ludovic Courtès
2012-01-04  3:04       ` Mike Gran
2012-01-04  9:35         ` nalaginrut
2012-01-04  9:41         ` David Kastrup [this message]
2012-01-04 21:07         ` Ludovic Courtès
2012-01-04 10:03     ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-04 14:29       ` Mike Gran
2012-01-04 14:45         ` David Kastrup
2012-01-04 16:47         ` Andy Wingo
2012-01-04 17:14           ` David Kastrup
2012-01-04 17:32             ` Andy Wingo
2012-01-04 17:49               ` David Kastrup
2012-01-04 18:09                 ` Andy Wingo
2012-01-04 17:30           ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-04 17:44             ` David Kastrup
2012-01-04 18:26             ` Ian Price
2012-01-04 18:48               ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-04 19:29               ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-04 20:20                 ` David Kastrup
2012-01-04 23:19                 ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-04 23:28                   ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-07 15:43                   ` Fixed string corruption bugs (was Guile: What's wrong with this?) Mark H Weaver
2012-01-07 16:19                     ` Fixed string corruption bugs Andy Wingo
2012-01-04 18:31           ` Guile: What's wrong with this? Mark H Weaver
2012-01-04 18:43             ` Andy Wingo
2012-01-04 19:29               ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-04 19:43                 ` Andy Wingo
2012-01-04 20:08                   ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-04 20:14                     ` David Kastrup
2012-01-04 20:56                     ` Andy Wingo
2012-01-04 21:30                       ` Bruce Korb
2012-01-04 17:19         ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-05  4:24           ` Mark H Weaver
2012-01-04 22:37       ` Ludovic Courtès

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

  List information: https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=8762grkdo2.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org \
    --to=dak@gnu.org \
    --cc=guile-devel@gnu.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).