Re: [Scheme-reports] "module" vs. "library"

[John Cowan <cowan@x>]

Denis Washington scripsit:

> This is also the feeling that I had. (Bigloo and Chicken are two
> others which use "module" for existing forms.) I feel that clashing
> with all of these implementations substantially increases the burden
> for these systems' implementors to adopt to R7RS, and that consistency
> with R6RS - to which several implementations are already adopted, and
> for which several libraries have been written - should be the key
> consideration here. (Personally, I find it a no-brainer to adopt the
> R6RS syntax instead of yet again inventing something new, but YMMV,
> naturally).

The trouble is that R7RS modules are neither forward nor backward
compatible with R6RS libraries, though they do have a considerable area
of overlap.  The WG was more concerned about allowing R6RS systems to
easily support R7RS modules than about collisions with existing uses
of the name "module".  It would, of course, be good to have a name
which had no backward compatibility issues whatsoever and was still
perspicuous, but no one has proposed any.  I thought of "define-module",
which is what Chibi uses, but at least Gauche, Guile, and STklos use it too.

> I am not exactly in the position to request this (I am not part of the
> WG as you obviously know), but you might want reconsider the decision
> for "library" in the light of these concerns.

Come up with a good answer and I'll have the question reopened.

-- 
You let them out again, Old Man Willow!                 John Cowan
What you be a-thinking of?  You should not be waking!   cowan@x
Eat earth!  Dig deep!  Drink water!  Go to sleep!
Bombadil is talking.                                    http://ccil.org/~cowan

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