[plt-scheme] boxes?

On 1/24/07, Matthias Felleisen <matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>
> We have taught with this restriction at Rice (i.e., set-box! without
> set!).
> It's painful.
>

I do have a question about the pain introduced by allowing set-box!
but not set! .
set! is a very nasty operation that is hidden by a deceptively simple syntax and
a simple, but incorrect, semantics (that is, most students *think*
they know what
it means and are sorely mistaken).  Is the pain of using set-box! due to the
clumsiness of manually boxing things, or is it simply exposing the
latent nastiness
of set! ?

> If you mean all set*!, then you need to convince a whole lot of
> people first.

I know.  The world is not ready for this idea so I'm procrastinating
on starting my
crusade.

-- 
~jrm