Re: The Guile junk drawer and a C plea

[Olivier Dion <olivier.dion@polymtl.ca>]

On Wed, 17 Jul 2024, Lassi Kortela <lassi@lassi.io> wrote:
>> I mean deprecation doesn't mean it has to be removed immediately.
>> 
>> There will be some time before it is actually removed. We can even push 
>> it to Guile 4.
>> 
>> Given a long timeline i doubt older programs would be advised to be used 
>> or even work with recent guile. Given the rest of the cleaning 
>> discussion and any other breaking changes that is.
>
> Arne's wisdom still holds. "Breaking" is bad, and "cleaning" does not 
> guarantee keeping clean.
>
> If the (guile ...) names are adopted, I suggest you keep the existing 
> (ice-9 ...) libraries indefinitely but no longer advertise them in the 
> manual.

I concur.  We can keep ice-9 indefinitely for backward support but also
because it is a piece of Guile history.  Even when Guile 4 is out, I
think ice-9 should be kept to ease transition from 3 to 4.  At the same
time, major version bumping also mean API breakage .. so it might be a
good opportunity.

However, if a (guile ...) hierarchy is introduced, all mentions to
ice-9, except the historical note, ought to be removed from the manual.

[...]

-- 
Olivier Dion
oldiob.ca