[plt-scheme] Proposal for s-expr tracing format

On Aug 13, 2007, at 11:51 AM, Shriram Krishnamurthi wrote:

>> John's suggestion has a certain appeal -- [...]
>
> It's definitely a *cute* suggestion.  But it has appeal for no more
> than a moment.
>
> To accept this "solution" would be to agree that continuations are so
> abnormal that programmers should never be able to work conveniently
> with them.  That is, we would be expressly penalizing them: first
> creating the incentive of being able to walk the trace using
> s-expression walkers, then perversely taking it away by making the
> parens not match and the walkers therefore no longer work.
>
> I'm not sure I'd want to send out that message about continuations.
> If anything, a TRACE done right could be a handy tool to
> *understanding* continuations!  (Until the Stepper handles
> continuations, that is, but I think that's slated for about 2025?)

If you like the suggestion, you can credit me with it; all I  
observed, though, was that the parens would be naturally unbalanced  
in the presence of call/cc.  My initial thought, quite frankly, was  
that this observation constituted support for the continued use of  
vertical bars or other non-parenthesis indicators.

John

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