[racket] Quoted expressions in #lang racket

On Sep 18, 2011, at 7:45 AM, Racket Noob wrote:

>  
> > You keep thinking (1 2 3) is the canonical form of a list. It is
> > not. It's just a particular *print representation* of list. So is
> > #<list> or one of the many alternatives Eli proposed.
> >
>  
> Oh, I understand that. It's just that I don't understand why you (i.e. Racket implementers) choose Racket by default prints list this way (different than all other lisps). I think this choice can confuse beginners (and all other users who switches from different lisp implementations and expects "traditional" REPL behaviour). 

They partly made the choice for people like me, who didn't experience their courses or work through the the early chapters in HtDP; our group is still suffering from software I wrote before I understood the difference between the R and P in REPL (using several earlier versions of Scheme). I believe the Racket REPL would have eliminated that confusion. I also find flights over the ocean are more comfortable with turbine engines than piston engines.

rac

>  
> > Your attempt to use an interpreter model is commendable but falls
> > short. That is because you only described the READ and EVAL steps of
> > a REPL. The L(oop) is not relevant here, but the P(rint) is actually
> > the most critical part, and that's the one you left out of your
> > attempt at explaining what's happening.
> > 
> > Also, Matthias asked you about substituting answers inside bigger
> > expressions. You gave him a mechanical answer of why (you think) it
> > won't work, but you failed to understand the bigger point he was
> > trying to make in the first place.
> > 
> > Shriram
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