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

[Denis Washington <denisw@x>]

Am 07.07.2011 19:52, schrieb John Cowan:
> Denis Washington scripsit:
>
>> What about "define-library"? It might be slightly confusing as it
>> sounds a bit procedural for a purely syntactic construct, but it
>> does not seem to clash with any existing implementation (as far as a
>> quick Google search reveals, at least) and preserves the "library"
>> term, which is common, well-known, clear and in line with previous
>> Scheme specs (R6RS and, in a way, R5RS' usage of the term "library
>> procedure").
>
> That's an excellent idea.  Ticket #228 filed.

Glad you like it.

>> Having said that, I don't find "extensibility" to be a particularly
>> good argument for the design of a standard module system.
>
> I think it's more about extensibility to the WG2 language and to further
> versions of Scheme than extensibility to individual implementation
> features (though implementation features ought to be the source for
> next-version features).

I know. My point was that if there is room for extensibility, it will 
eventually be used by implementors.

>
>> [...] what is actually mainly thought of as a portability construct [...]
>
> What begins as a portability construct in the current generation of
> Schemes becomes the native format in future generations, if history is
> anything to go by -- and not just Scheme history, either; Unicode started
> out as a mere interchange encoding between systems that were expected to
> preserve their native encodings, and has now become the native encoding
> of most systems.

Fair enough.

>> [...] it encourages programmers to narrow the portability of their
>> code to a subset of the Scheme landscape for mere convenience.
>
> As I've pointed out before, application programmers don't really need to
> make their code portable between Schemes any more, because each Scheme
> (with a very few exceptions) is itself highly portable.  It's library
> programmers that really need and benefit from standardization.

With the exception of a module system which is supported by a major 
number of (non-R6RS) Scheme systems, yes. (That and a portable FFI to 
call C code, but this is a whole other issue.)

Regards,
Denis Washington

_______________________________________________
Scheme-reports mailing list
Scheme-reports@x
http://lists.scheme-reports.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scheme-reports