[R6RS] Core vs. library

[Anton van Straaten]

Will wrote:
> Regardless of the mechanism, there should be some easy way
> to write programs that import everything defined in the R6RS
> document(s), including libraries for such things as hash tables,
> fixnum operations, flonum operations, and delay/force.

The proposal I've just posted specifies an 'r6rs-big' language for this 
purpose.  I believe this also corresponds to the "umbrella" language 
which Kent suggested on the phone last week.

> There should also be some easy way to write programs that
> import only a smaller language that excludes some of the more
> specialized or controversial features such as: [...]

Thanks for the list.  I've included most of it in the proposal, with the 
exception of the "(if in R6RS)" items.  Many details are yet to be 
fleshed out.

> For many of the above, the rationale for being able to leave
> them out is that the R6RS spec will be in conflict with code
> that uses implementation-specific extensions to R5RS, and it
> would be a nightmare to port code to the R6RS if you had to
> deal with all of those changes at once.  We need to make it
> easy for programmers to convert just one subsystem at a time.
> 
> As I understand it, SRFI 83 currently provides no way for a
> programmer to exclude items that are implicitly imported by
> "scheme://r6rs".  Until that is changed, I must object to
> having "scheme://r6rs" include the features listed above.
> If that is changed, however, then I will no longer object to
> making "scheme://r6rs" include all of those features.

The proposal addresses all of these points.

Anton