What are “continuations”?
Continuations represent the “future” of computation at a particular point in program execution. Section 6.4 of R5RS gives a pretty good description of what exactly continuations are and how they can be “captured”. It also outlines their ancestry in programming language theory. Scheme is one of only a small number of languages that give the programmer access to continuations. Continuations have a multitude of uses but typically are only explictly dealt with in a few places in a program where their use greatly simplifies the structure of the code. Understanding and successfully using continuations is one of the key skills that distinguish a Scheme expert from a casual or novice user. Unfortunately, because continuations are such a comparatively unusual concept, good mainstream introductions to the concept and its application are hard to find. See The Scheme Programming Language, Third Edition by Kent Dybvig, which is also available online at http://www.scheme.com/tspl3 .
Related Questions
- What changed in the DIADEM metric released on 2/19/2010? Why are some of nodes that should be scored as continuations being scored as misses in the prior release?
- Is the County Recorder to record Continuations, Assignments, Amendments, or Partial Releases for Financing Statements recorded in the county prior to July, 2001?
- How are Pending Continuations and Divisional Applications Treated?
