[r6rs-discuss] Libraries

From: Andre van Tonder <andre>
Date: Fri Nov 10 12:08:36 2006

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 MichaelL_at_frogware.com wrote:

> (I was interested in feedback on the following before submitting a formal
> comment.)

I hope you will submit a comment. See below.

> So my recommendation would be to drop multi-part names and version numbers
> in R6RS and go (initially) with a simpler mechanism.

I agree completely, and here are two additional reasons:

- The current specification does not generalize to local libraries, which are a
   very natural future extension that already exists in at least one major
   Scheme implementation.

   Local library names must be identifiers so that they can scope lexically and
   be subject to hygiene, like other bindings. The current draft says that
   toplevel library names are not identifiers. As a result, an extension of the
   current draft that adds local libraries would be forced into the absurd
   situation where toplevel and local libraries belong to two different
   namespaces. It is as absurd as introducing different namespaces for local
   and toplevel "define".

- Even if one never needs to add local libraries, the current specification
   introduces two namespaces at the toplevel - that is in Schemes that do have a
   toplevel, which r6rs does not forbid. This goes against the one-namespace
   tradition in Scheme.

Cheers
Andre
Received on Fri Nov 10 2006 - 12:07:57 UTC