SICP Solutions

Ben want to say that as an special form we can implement unless just like we implemented if. Similar to the implementation of if where we evaluate either consequent or alternative depending on the result of evaluation of predicate. Similarly we can implement unless in applicative order language.

Alyssa’s point was also true that special forms can not be passed as procedures to other procedures. When we pass unless or if as arguments, then these arguments will be evaluated as operands by invoking (eval 'if). Now, we can check easily that at this point, eval will think of if as a name and tries to lookup for this name in the environment!

Well, I can not come up with a good use case.

Every time I tried to come up with a use case, it can be solved in a different equally simple or even more simpler way and without any effect on performance.

Initially i felt that Alyssa is making quite a good point and we might need it but now I think such case is quite rare.

It’s quite easy to implement derived form for unless. Since it is not mentioned, I am assuming that, Unlike if, unless won’t be used only with two arguments i.e. like (unless <c> <u>) but will only be used like (unless <c> <u> <e>).

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
(define (unless? expr) (tagged-list? expr 'unless))

(define (unless-condition expr) (cadr expr)) 
(define (unless-usual expr) (caddr expr)) 
(define (unless-exceptional expr) (cadddr expr)) 
  
(define (unless->if expr) 
  (make-if (unless-condition expr)
		   (unless-exceptional expr)
		   (unless-usual expr)
		   ))