papresco@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Prescod) writes:
> In article <s6ypvvukubq.fsf@aalh02.alcatel.com.au>,
> Chris Bitmead uid(x22068) <Chris.Bitmead@alcatel.com.au> wrote:
> >While Lisp does not store numbers as strings, I never know or care
> >that this is the case. In fact I could write a Lisp implementation
> >that does store numbers as strings, and a programmer using it would be
> >none the wiser (apart from awful performance of course). Why do you
> >want to fit everything in a string?? It buys you NOTHING.
>
> It buys you not having to write string->number. I don't think that this is a
> big win, but I could see how it would be useful to people who are not used
> to thinking about data types. Any programmer should run screaming from it,
> but I can see its value for end users. That explains why apps embed TCL, but
> not why programmers write whole programs in it.
If you're using string->number you're already doing fairly
sophisticated programming. The naive user can input and output numbers
without conversion.
scheme
> (* (read) 2)
10
=> 20
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