Thanks for the link Tony! That seems to tackle exactly what I'm having trouble with.<div> -Patrick<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 9:11 AM, Patrick Li <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:patrickli.2001@gmail.com">patrickli.2001@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">Thanks for the help. I shall read through AMOP in more detail and see if I can get some hints from that.<div> -Patrick<div> <div></div><div class="h5"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 11:25 PM, Hendrik Boom <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:hendrik@topoi.pooq.com" target="_blank">hendrik@topoi.pooq.com</a>></span> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div></div><div>On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 11:07:49PM -0500, Patrick Li wrote:<br> > Hello everyone,<br> ><br> > I'm writing a toy Scheme-ish interpreter for fun, and am trying to add some<br> > Smalltalk flavor to my Scheme system. I'm running into a bootstrapping<br> > problem though, and would like to ask someone for a nudge in the right<br> > direction.<br> ><br> > (1) I want symbols to be represented as Functions.<br> > ie. I want to be able to do this:<br> > ('my-symbol 'length) returns 9<br> > ('my-symbol 'equals 'my-symbol2) returns false<br> ><br> > (2) I want symbols to be created by calling the function SYMBOL:<br> > (SYMBOL 'new <internal-symbol-representation>) returns a new function<br> > representing a symbol<br> ><br> > (3) I want users to be able to override the built-in SYMBOL function.<br> > (define SYMBOL (lambda args .... new symbol definition ....))<br> ><br> > I can't seem to write a system like this without falling into an infinite<br> > loop somewhere.<br> ><br> > For example this is the last one that I ran into:<br> ><br> > i. (quote asdf) is a special form that should create a symbol by calling<br> > (SYMBOL 'new <internal-object-which-represents-asdf>)<br> ><br> > ii. But doing that requires creating the 'new symbol<br> ><br> > iii. Creating the 'new symbol requires calling<br> > (SYMBOL 'new <internal-object-which-represents-new>)<br> ><br> > iv. But doing that requires creating the 'new symbol<br> ><br> > and so on.<br> ><br> ><br> > I apologize if this seems unclear. Please ask me for clarifications if I<br> > didn't explain myself properly. I have been stuck on this sort of problem<br> > for a while now, and can't wrap my head around it.<br> > -Patrick<br> <br> </div></div>When you find you need to have implemented something in order to<br> implement itself within your sustem, it's a strong clue that it has to<br> be built into the system, rather than built on top of it.. In this<br> case, the symbol 'new, will have to be in the system to stat with, i.e.,<br> written in whatever othe system you bootstrap from.<br> <br> -- hendrik<br> _________________________________________________<br> For list-related administrative tasks:<br> <a href="http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/users" target="_blank">http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/users</a><br> </blockquote></div><br></div></div></div> </blockquote></div><br></div>