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Comment by david-given | Hacker News Reader

Metropolitan Transit Authority, apparently, and not Mail Transfer Agent as I had originally thought. Although knowing this hasn't made anything clearer.

About five minutes of my life died to bring you this information.

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Cheney on the MTA is a strategy for efficiently implementing continuations, TCO, and garbage collection, and allows you to create a continuation with no immediate cost. It's a pun on the song "Charlie on the MTA" because of how it's implemented, like Charlie, it "never returns." For more info, see "CONS Should Not CONS Its Arguments Part II: Cheney On The MTA" By Henry Baker.

Yes, that was where I eventually tracked down the meaning (in the footnotes where it was hard to find, although they were good enough to quote the verse).

The thing about pop culture is that firstly it dates really badly, and second is that it doesn't work across cultures. I'd never heard of the song before now..

"Charlie on the MTA" isn't really "pop" culture, it's Boston (area) culture, originating over 60 years ago. Not surprising that it ended up in technical literature around Scheme.

Boston area? I live in New England, and while not exactly the most common thing, it's fairly well known.

I've seen more than a few people who thought the Boston T charged you on your way out their first time in Boston because of this song.

The reasoning behind the naming is outlined here: http://www.pipeline.com/~hbaker1/CheneyMTA.html. It's a fun read and once you see the lyric it's based on, it makes a lot more sense.

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