[racket-dev] #true and #false

Sounds great to me, fwiw.

Robby

On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 8:12 PM, Matthew Flatt <mflatt at cs.utah.edu> wrote:
> [Re-sending; an earlier post of this message seems to be delayed.]
>
> What if the default printing format for true and false values in Racket
> changed from `#t' and `#f' to `#true' and `#false'?
>
> The forms `#t', `#T', `#true', `#f', `#F', and `#false' would all be
> accepted as inputs forms. We could conceivably limit the change to
> `print' output and not change `write' or `display' output, but let's
> say for now that the proposal is to change the default for all output
> modes in Racket. Of course, there would be a parameter to pick the
> traditional format in any case, and we won't change the printer used
> for R5RS or R6RS.
>
>
> This proposal originates with the need to fix a problem in the HtDP
> teaching languages. The HtDP teaching languages currently use `true'
> and `false' for true and false, and the HtDP languages are configured
> to print booleans as `true' and `false'. That doesn't work with quoted
> lists. For example,
>
>  '(true false)
>
> is a list of symbols, not a list of booleans.
>
> Using `#t' and `#f' in the teaching languages would avoid the problem,
> but those forms seem awfully terse. We'd like to try `#true' and
> `#false', instead. Then, to keep the HtDP and full Racket languages in
> sync as much as possible, we would like to add `#true' and `#false' to
> Racket. Along the same lines, consistent printing would be ideal.
>
>
> I'd like to switch to `#true' and `#false' because I often fail to look
> carefully enough to distinguish `#t' and `#f'. Just this morning, I
> tried out my prototype reader change in the REPL:
>
>  Welcome to Racket v5.0.1.7.
>  > #true
>  #t
>  > #false
>  #t
>
> That looked right to me. Of course, new cases in the reader test suite
> immediately flagged the bug, but I was amused that "testing" in a REPL
> didn't make me see the problem in the first place.
>
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