"Are contracts built in to the language on a fundamental level, or are they just part of the standard library? "
One of the points of Lisp is that that difference doesn't matter.
But besides that, in this case it couldn't possibly matter. You write contracts for your functions. If they're violated at runtime you'll get a clear error that stops execution to contain damage, and assigns blame to the contract violator. At what point in that process does it matter whether contracts are "built into the language"?
To be clear, I'm not suggesting it's an important question per se.
_delerium presented an argument that the things people do with macros should be implemented as language facilities instead. Ve used racket contracts as an example.
I was saying that if racket contracts are not implemented as language facilities, it's not a very good example.
Comments
"Are contracts built in to the language on a fundamental level, or are they just part of the standard library? "
One of the points of Lisp is that that difference doesn't matter.
But besides that, in this case it couldn't possibly matter. You write contracts for your functions. If they're violated at runtime you'll get a clear error that stops execution to contain damage, and assigns blame to the contract violator. At what point in that process does it matter whether contracts are "built into the language"?
To be clear, I'm not suggesting it's an important question per se.
_delerium presented an argument that the things people do with macros should be implemented as language facilities instead. Ve used racket contracts as an example.
I was saying that if racket contracts are not implemented as language facilities, it's not a very good example.