The major difference in Scheme between vectors and imps is that imps have this special relation to Scheme's own syntax. Scheme treats its code as itself being complex imps, not as being complex vectors. Another difference is that under the hood, the computer implements vectors and imps differently. Vectors store all of their elements in a contiguous block of memory (an "array"), whereas imps may store them scattered all over the place (as a "linked list"). On early computing hardware, the latter was often-times more useful; on contemporary hardware, it's much less so. But neither vectors nor imps are closer models of (heavyweight) tuples in Kapulet, OCaml, and Haskell than the other. They can both contain type-heterogenous elements, including other vectors and/or imps. Like vectors, but unlike the structures in other languages, imps in Scheme are by default mutable. But many implementations also offer immutable imps.
Okay, that's the story you should first get your head around about longer Scheme containers. We'll talk about shorter containers, including unit(s), in a moment. But I've used idiosyncratic language in talking about these "imp"s, and I've suppressed some complications, which we should now consider.
The major difference in Scheme between vectors and imps is that imps have this special relation to Scheme's own syntax. Scheme treats its code as itself being complex imps, not as being complex vectors. Another difference is that under the hood, the computer implements vectors and imps differently. Vectors store all of their elements in a contiguous block of memory (an "array"), whereas imps may store them scattered all over the place (as a "linked list"). On early computing hardware, the latter was often-times more useful; on contemporary hardware, it's much less so. But neither vectors nor imps are closer models of (heavyweight) tuples in Kapulet, OCaml, and Haskell than the other. They can both contain type-heterogenous elements, including other vectors and/or imps. Like vectors, but unlike the structures in other languages, imps in Scheme are by default mutable. But many implementations also offer immutable imps.
Okay, that's the story you should first get your head around about longer Scheme containers. We'll talk about shorter containers, including unit(s), in a moment. But I've used idiosyncratic language in talking about these "imp"s, and I've suppressed some complications, which we should now consider.