From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Marius Vollmer Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: Items blocking release 1.6.1 (2002-04-21) Date: 23 Apr 2002 20:16:20 +0200 Sender: guile-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: <87wuuyl1qj.fsf@zagadka.ping.de> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1019585734 6787 127.0.0.1 (23 Apr 2002 18:15:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 18:15:34 +0000 (UTC) Cc: rlb@defaultvalue.org, guile-devel@gnu.org, guile-user@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 1704pC-0001lM-00 for ; Tue, 23 Apr 2002 20:15:34 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 1704oq-00058J-00; Tue, 23 Apr 2002 14:15:12 -0400 Original-Received: from [195.138.43.238] (helo=zagadka.ping.de) by fencepost.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 1704mt-0004yi-00 for ; Tue, 23 Apr 2002 14:13:12 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 1201 invoked by uid 1000); 23 Apr 2002 18:16:20 -0000 Original-To: ttn@glug.org In-Reply-To: Original-Lines: 37 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 Errors-To: guile-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:473 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.guile.devel:473 Thien-Thi Nguyen writes: > Ok, I'll looker closer into this, and I now have to say that we can't > 'fix' it. We would be changing the default default value from '#f' > to something else. That would be an unacceptable interface change. > > but removing `bound?' is acceptable? Yes. The way the old 'bound?' was implemented was a bug. The mistake (my mistake) back then was to fix this bug in a sub-optimal way, by just removing the functionality. Now it is too late to change it again; and changing it would be quite gratuitous, too. Using #f as the default default value is a sensible thing, I'd say, and should even be recommended. From a robustness standpoint, distinguishing between explicitely specifying a keyword with its default value in a function call, and not specifying it, should not be done. That is, it is better to say "When you don't specify the :foo keyword, it's value is defaulted to #f. A value of #f means bla." instead of "When you don't specify the :foo keyword, it means bla." > Since it is easy for the user to provide the functionality on its > own, we can just leave it as it is. > > to provide out of band info, you can use out of band methods (in fact, > this is the fix i thought you were going to consider). Yes, but we would have to change the semantics of (ice-9 optargs) in a way that could lead to silent failures. Removing 'bound?' did not do that. > cc'ing guile-user to see who complains (besides me). maybe someone can > send a patch to do a clean fix, and explain it. maybe it's time to fork > guile (again). I think it would be smarter to just fork (ice-9 optargs), if you can make such fine distinctions. _______________________________________________ Guile-devel mailing list Guile-devel@gnu.org http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-devel