unicode as valid naming symbols

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com>:

> I don't find it more readable to cast something as recursive; compare
> these two tight loops:
>
>           (let find-divisor ((c 2))
>             (cond
>              ((= c i)
>               (format #t "~S\n" i)
>               (display-primes (1+ count) (1+ i)))
>              ((= (remainder i c) 0)
>               (display-primes count (1+ i)))
>              (else
>               (find-divisor (1+ c)))))))))
>
>       for ( factor = 2 ; factor <= i - 1 ; factor++ )
>          if ( i%factor == 0 ) break;
>       if ( factor == i )
>       {
>          printf("%d\n",i);
>          count--;
>       }
>
> In the first one, you start doing something, and if you don't have a
> termination point, you recurse - which means you have to name this
> loop as a function. In the second, you simply iterate,

I implemented the loops in the scheme way. Recursion is how iteration is
done by the Believers. Traditional looping structures are available to
scheme, but if you felt the need for them, you might as well program in
Python.

On the other hand, I didn't look for the most elegant implementation
idiom but tried to translate the original rather mechanically--in good
and bad.

> My view is definitely that the C version is WAY more readable than the
> Scheme one.

Yes, scheme is an acquired taste. As is Python. My experienced bash/C
colleague was baffled by some Python idioms (not in my code, I might
add) that looked pretty clear to me.


Marko