From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: Guile: What's wrong with this? Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:39:06 +0100 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: <87d3azgyf9.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <4F027F35.5020001@gmail.com> <1325603029.22166.YahooMailNeo@web37906.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4F032C41.3070300@gmail.com> <87mxa4ifux.fsf@gnu.org> <4F038BF4.1070200@gnu.org> <87obujzmmc.fsf@Kagami.home> <4F048972.5040803@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1325698774 17504 80.91.229.12 (4 Jan 2012 17:39:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:39:34 +0000 (UTC) To: guile-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jan 04 18:39:31 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RiUoB-0007qO-Ml for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:39:27 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:36407 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RiUoB-0007GT-9f for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:39:27 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:58971) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RiUo7-0007GO-FH for guile-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:39:24 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RiUo6-0002GM-Kg for guile-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:39:23 -0500 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:42516) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RiUo6-0002GB-Ai for guile-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:39:22 -0500 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RiUo4-0007ml-VO for guile-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:39:20 +0100 Original-Received: from p508ec2ac.dip.t-dialin.net ([80.142.194.172]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:39:20 +0100 Original-Received: from dak by p508ec2ac.dip.t-dialin.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:39:20 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 36 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: p508ec2ac.dip.t-dialin.net X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6, xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN; i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.0.92 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:mXbhQZ+H91AG0FovI3G0nQ/0cAU= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 80.91.229.12 X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:13275 Archived-At: Bruce Korb writes: > On 01/04/12 04:19, Ian Price wrote: >> ... As for mutable strings, I consider them >> a mistake to begin with,... > > Let's step back and consider the whole point of Guile in the first place. > > My understanding is that one primary purpose is to be a facilitation > language so that application developers have less to worry about and > futz over. An extension language, if you like that phrase. As such, > it would seem to me that a primary design goal would be to make the > pathway as smooth as possible, rather than trying to emulate C and/or > official Scheme language specs as closely as possible. To me, my primary > concern is doing my little thing with the least total hassle. Having > to study up on and thoroughly understand the Scheme language seems > a lot harder than just using Perl (or what-have-you). Most scripting > languages don't cut you off at the knees (change interfaces). > > So my main question is: > > Which is the higher priority, language purity or ease of use? Encouraging language abuse like making _literals_ not eq? to themselves makes a language unpredictable. That is not a road to ease of use. It is a dead end. > and fix the 1.9 bug (scribbling on shared strings) by making them > copy-on-write thingys. So you want to give eq? unpredictable semantics as well. What else has made your black list of things to sacrifice in order to keep undefined code working in a particular undefined way? -- David Kastrup