1.1.7. Example: Square Roots by Newton’s Method
Special form
Alyssa P. Hacker doesn't see why if needs to be provided as a special form. ''Why can't I just define it as an ordinary procedure in terms of cond?'' she asks. Alyssa's friend Eva Lu Ator claims this can indeed be done, and she defines a new version of if:
(define (new-if predicate then-clause else-clause)
(cond (predicate then-clause)
(else else-clause)))
Eva demonstrates the program for Alyssa:
(new-if (= 2 3) 0 5)
5
(new-if (= 1 1) 0 5)
0
Delighted, Alyssa uses new-if to rewrite the square-root program:
(define (sqrt-iter guess x)
(new-if (good-enough? guess x)
guess
(sqrt-iter (improve guess x)
x)))
What happens when Alyssa attempts to use this to compute square roots? Explain.