[racket-dev] very unhelpful beginner language error message, possible fix proposed

On Feb 13, 2012, at 7:44 PM, David Van Horn wrote:

> On 2/13/12 7:32 PM, Stephen Bloch wrote:
>> In ISL, there's an additional case: a local variable might or  
>> might not be bound to a function.  That's a little more hassle to  
>> check, but it should be doable at compile-time.  Again, if the  
>> first element of a cond-clause is an identifier bound to a  
>> function, trigger our clever error message at compile-time.
>
> Once you go to ISL you cannot tell whether a name refers to a  
> function or a non-function without running code.

You can't tell IN GENERAL, but in many cases you can.  I'm suggesting  
that those cases cover the most common instances of this user error,  
so it would be worth checking for them.


Stephen Bloch
sbloch at adelphi.edu



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