[plt-scheme] eval question

[Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk@cs.brown.edu>]

Bruce,

The argument is simply that you would make about any sharp tool: are
you sure you absolutely need it?  A lot of times people use EVAL for
completely incorrect reasons.  I have even seen people who write

  (eval 'x)

when all they wanted to say was

  x

to access the variable's value!  To prevent abominations like this
(and to avoid getting in the way of any analysis you might want to
perform on your code), teachers recommend that their students not use
EVAL at all.  That said, there are some legitimate uses for EVAL,
though I couldn't offer you a taxonomy of them.  The uses in SXML are
borderline legitimate.

Shriram