[plt-scheme] Smallest set of operators

On 2/2/07, Carl Eastlund <cce at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> I interpreted 'implement' differently than you.  I don't believe
> 'implement' necessarily means 'with a level of indirection similar to
> an interpreter/compiler'.  It remains for Paulo to explain which way
> he meant, but I believe my interpretation is consistent with his
> question and his responses.
>
> --Carl
>

Well, it seems that since you all have a much deeper background than I
in Programming Languages, you can see deeper than I can regarding this
question. What I meant since the beginning is what Carl thought about.
Although you can use Scheme (using lambdas) to implement X, and then
you could use X to implement the rest, then I guess the real answer to
my question would be 1, you only need lambdas. On the other hand, you
might need 2, lambdas and define because you might need to do (define
X (lambda...)) and in the remainder you would use X.

However, and this by no means deserve an answer, but I have trouble
seeing I/O stuff, floating point arithmetic, etc implemented with X
but again this is mostly due to my narrow view on this subject. :-)

Regards and thanks for all the answers,

Paulo Matos


-- 
Paulo Jorge Matos - pocm at soton.ac.uk
http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/pocm
PhD Student @ ECS
University of Southampton, UK