Re: A value for "nothing"

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

On Mon, Aug 27, 2018 at 12:54 AM Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org> wrote:


> However, in most cases, symbols are precisely what's needed to represent
> distinguished atomic objects such as this.
>

The problem with symbols in Scheme is that they are not namespaced, so
two different modules can use the same symbols in different ways.
Exported variable bindings can be managed with the module system.


> I hope that HiPhish is not planning to use symbols to represent
> MessagePack strings.
>

However, in formats like JSON where map keys are always strings,
it can save a lot of space to represent them as symbols, since
they are often repeated from one object to the next.  There is no such
limitation in MessagePack, although I bet strings are the most common
type of map keys.

-- 
John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan@ccil.org
Knowledge studies others / Wisdom is self-known;
Muscle masters brothers / Self-mastery is bone;
Content need never borrow / Ambition wanders blind;
Vitality cleaves to the marrow / Leaving death behind.    --Tao 33 (Bynner)