[plt-scheme] Native code generation and immutable pairs

--- Gregory Woodhouse <gregory.woodhouse at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

> (To tell you the truth, I've really been puzzling over
> how an  
> application programmer might use boxes, but I've
> implicitly assumed  
> that pairs are mutable.)

The primary use in my experience is to simulate a mutable
binding.  Module bindings can only be mutated by the
defining module.  Sometimes it is useful to allow others to
mutate a binding, in which case storing the value in a box
is a solution.  However, it is almost always the wrong
solution -- parameters are better for most use cases, and
monads for pretty much all other cases I can think of,
leaving boxes for the cases where you want inexplicable
behaviour in the presence of concurrency and continuations.

N.

Email: noelwelsh <at> yahoo <dot> com   noel <at> untyped <dot> com
AIM: noelhwelsh
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