<div dir="ltr"><div class="markdown-here-wrapper" id="markdown-here-wrapper-852919" style>Hi, The documentation says that <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">struct</code> creates structures that are treated as first-class values. I can see the motivation for pursuing expressiveness. So what do we achieve using first-class structures? On the down side, I see some problems. For example, in the Beginning Student language, a <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">posn</code> is both a <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">posn?</code> and a <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">struct?</code>. <pre style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;font-size:1em;line-height:1.2em;margin:1.2em 0px"><code class="language-racket" style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline;white-space:pre;overflow:auto;border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;border:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding:0.5em 0.7em;display:block;padding:0.5em;color:rgb(51,51,51);background-color:rgb(248,248,255);background-repeat:initial initial">> (posn? (make-posn 1 2)) #t > (struct? (make-posn 1 2)) #t </code></pre> I guess this is because <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">posn</code> is declared to be <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">#:transparent</code>. In my opinion, exposing the <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">struct?</code> nature of <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">posn</code> undermines abstraction and breaks encapsulation. But without declaring it <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">#:transparent</code>, the printer could not echo informative response. It seems to me the two aspects: exposing the <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">struct?</code> nature and informative result are unnecessarily tangled. If they can be separated, we may be able to give informative result and at the same time not to expose the <code style="font-size:0.85em;font-family:Consolas,Inconsolata,Courier,monospace;margin:0px 0.15em;padding:0px 0.3em;white-space:pre-wrap;border:1px solid rgb(234,234,234);background-color:rgb(248,248,248);border-top-left-radius:3px;border-top-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-right-radius:3px;border-bottom-left-radius:3px;display:inline">struct?</code> nature of structure types. Best, Yi </div></div>