[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] Dropping rename and add-prefix from libraries

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This message is a formal comment which was submitted to formal-comment_at_r6rs.org, following the requirements described at: http://www.r6rs.org/process.html
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Name        : Abdulaziz Ghuloum
Email       : aghuloum at cs.indiana.edu
Type        : simplification
Priority    : minor
Component   : libraries
Version     : 5.91
Requires    : local imports
One sentence summary:  The add-prefix and rename forms in libraries'
import form are not necessary if local imports are provided.
Description:
The syntax of the import form for R6RS libraries provides a way of
renaming and adding a prefix to imported identifiers.  The rationale
for providing this facility is to minimize the chance of name
collision amongst identifiers imported from multiple libraries that
are written by many people.  This is very likely to happen because
all (possibly thousands of) imported identifiers are dumped into the
library's global environment, making the chance for conflicts much
more likely.  Making all identifiers longer by adding prefixes, or
manually renaming all conflicting identifiers is not the optimal
solution to the problem.
When local imports give the programmers the ability to control the
scope of the imported identifiers (possibly limiting the scope to a
single reference if needed), the programmer is unlikely to need
having all imported identifiers to have unique names.  In my
personal experience using Chez Scheme's modules for years, I never
for once needed to add prefixes to imported identifiers.
Recommendation:
The import form of R6RS libraries should be simplified by removing
the rename and add-prefix forms since these two facilities are an
artifact of the lack of scope control in current R6RS libraries.