[r6rs-discuss] [Formal] Version reference syntax is overly complex.

From: Jens Axel Søgaard <jensaxel>
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 12:57:13 +0200

Shiro Kawai wrote:

> Suggested alternative #2
> ------------------------
>
> Drop the whole library versioning idea from r6rs.

In the case where you distribute your program including
all used libraries, versions aren't terrible important.

However, if a library outside your control is updated,
then it is better to get a library version error than
some random runtime error.

> I do recognize the importance of library versioning; however,
> the current R6RS spec seems off-balance. It specifies
> the version reference very thoroughly that will cover
> complicated cases which will be used rarely; on the other
> hand, it doesn't specify an important feature in practice,
> by which the library user can switch code based on which
> version of library is actually imported---it is absolutely
> necessary if the library has changed API among versions.

Agree.

A convention like "API changes imply changes of major version"
would almost solve this, but is of course not checkable.

> Another unresolved issue is the need to make different versions
> coexist in one program, as Pinku Surana pointed in
> <001c01c7adcf$feb886d0$6800a8c0 at Spike>.

Yes - that's tricky.

-- 
Jens Axel S?gaard
Received on Sun Jun 17 2007 - 06:57:13 UTC

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