2.6.3 Rationale

Many Scheme implementations provide means for creating new types, usually called either records or structures. The DEFINE-RECORD-TYPE syntax described here is a slight simplification of one written for Scheme 48 by Jonathan Rees. Unlike many record–defining macros or special forms, it does not create any new identifiers. Instead, the names of the record type, predicate, constructor, and so on are all listed explicitly in the source. This has the following advantages:

• It can be defined using a simple syntax-rules macro in Scheme implementations that provide a procedural interface for creating record types.
• It does not restrict users to a particular naming convention.
• Tools like grep and GNU Emacs’s tag facility will see the defining occurance of each identifier.