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From: Matt Wette <matt.wette@gmail.com>
To: guile-user@gnu.org
Subject: Re: A value for "nothing"
Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2018 15:08:07 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <c44e1944-3b55-089b-7cc1-d6aed53e71f7@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87sh30vqmm.fsf@netris.org>

On 08/26/2018 01:07 PM, Mark H Weaver wrote:

> HiPhish <hiphish@posteo.de> writes:
>
>> I am writing an implementation of MessagePack [1] for Guile and a part of the
>> spec is the presence of a "nil" data type. What would be a good value to
>> express "nothing" in Guile?

> However, I would strongly advise against writing code (or worse, APIs)
> that depend on (if #f #f) or *unspecified* returning a particular
> distinguished value.

That tells me we should never use `(define x)'.

> I would also avoid Guile's #nil.  That is a very special value, for one
> purpose relating to Elisp compatibility, and ideally it should not be
> used for anything else.

#nil only appears in the manual in association with the elisp extension.
I'm guessing it only intended to only appear in Scheme programs as '(const #nil)
when writing tree-il.




  reply	other threads:[~2018-08-26 22:08 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 42+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2018-08-26 10:13 A value for "nothing" HiPhish
2018-08-26 17:21 ` Thomas Morley
2018-08-26 17:27 ` Joshua Branson
2018-08-26 17:49 ` John Cowan
2018-08-27  4:52   ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-27 13:00     ` John Cowan
2018-08-27 21:29       ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-27 21:32       ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-26 20:07 ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-26 22:08   ` Matt Wette [this message]
2018-08-27  8:04   ` tomas
2018-08-27 20:12     ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-27 20:46       ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-28  0:50         ` Matt Wette
2018-08-28  6:58           ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-28 15:19             ` John Cowan
2018-08-28 15:38               ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-28 15:59                 ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-28 16:12                 ` John Cowan
2018-08-28 17:15                   ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-28 19:07                   ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-27 20:54       ` Hans Åberg
2018-08-27  0:17 ` Panicz Maciej Godek
2018-08-27  8:02   ` tomas
2018-08-27  8:29     ` Panicz Maciej Godek
2018-08-27  8:29   ` HiPhish
     [not found] ` <8840615.kRvQfVdCvZ@aleksandar-ixtreme-m5740>
     [not found]   ` <CAD2gp_QLqd=_RbF=HTEbCLp1onmUq-c74g0FXTvMgdz8JB4-8A@mail.gmail.com>
2018-08-27  8:24     ` HiPhish
     [not found] ` <3467110.H24gZIzStD@aleksandar-ixtreme-m5740>
     [not found]   ` <87ftz0vidc.fsf@netris.org>
2018-08-27  8:40     ` HiPhish
2018-08-27 12:37       ` Ludovic Courtès
2018-08-27 19:49         ` Mark H Weaver
2018-08-28  7:52           ` Ludovic Courtès
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2018-08-26 20:25 HiPhish
2018-09-13 21:49 HiPhish
     [not found] ` <CAD2gp_Sg-aDXZKfOcL-i2py7ne4c0Cp+2HvKS4DYi1Antm_B1A@mail.gmail.com>
2018-09-14 22:45   ` HiPhish
2018-09-15  0:26     ` John Cowan
2018-09-15 14:50       ` HiPhish
2018-09-15 18:28         ` Keith Wright
2018-09-15 21:50           ` Edwin Watkeys
2018-09-15 22:16             ` HiPhish
2018-09-15 22:23               ` Edwin Watkeys
2018-09-15 22:13           ` HiPhish
2018-09-15 22:45       ` David Pirotte

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