rfc: (ice-9 accumulate)

[Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@gnuvola.org>]

Would there be any interest in adding (ice-9 accumulate) to Guile?

- http://www.gnuvola.org/software/guile/doc/Efficient-Accumulation.html

I can see several arguments against doing so:

- It is a thin layer around (ice-9 q) functionality; possible to
  reimplement using (ice-9 q), in fact.  When the layer is thin, i
  wonder if the usefulness is more personal (a matter of taste) than
  general.  (See e.g., ttn-do macro `FE'.)

- The interface is procedural, possibly defeating compiler optimization.
  When i wrote it, it was an exercise for hobbit.  The hope was that
  hobbit could eventually learn to optimize usage of (ice-9 accumulate)
  calls to (strength-, complexity-)reduce them to (ice-9 q) calls, where
  other data-oriented optimizations can come into play.  Perhaps that
  hope was only a non-compiler-geek dream (sounds nice but unfeasible).
  Perhaps Andy can either revive this hope or kindly kill it off now?

- There is already something in Guile.  [If so, where?  Thanks.]

Of course, the primary argument *for* adding it would be to make porting
my stuff to Guile easier.  That's a selfish argument, so take it FWIW.

thi