From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: (Chris Beggy ) news@kippona.com Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.user Subject: Re: Forking stables. was Re: language translator help Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 14:40:57 -0400 Organization: Kippona Sender: guile-user-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: <87d6uomnuu.fsf@lackawana.kippona.com> References: <200206141608.12568.unknown_lamer@unknownlamer.org> <200206141703.26705.unknown_lamer@unknownlamer.org> <87hek5357e.fsf@lackawana.kippona.com> Reply-To: Chris Beggy NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1024428087 14997 127.0.0.1 (18 Jun 2002 19:21:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 19:21:27 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 17KOXe-0003tm-00 for ; Tue, 18 Jun 2002 21:21:26 +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 17KOV3-0006Dk-00; Tue, 18 Jun 2002 15:18:45 -0400 Original-Received: from lackawana.kippona.com ([207.8.195.148]) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 17KNuo-0003SU-00 for ; Tue, 18 Jun 2002 14:41:18 -0400 Original-Received: from lackawana.kippona.com (nobody@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lackawana.kippona.com (8.12.2/8.12.2/Kippona) with ESMTP id g5IIf5m4008639 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO) for ; Tue, 18 Jun 2002 14:41:05 -0400 Original-Received: (from nobody@localhost) by lackawana.kippona.com (8.12.2/8.12.2/Submit/Kippona) id g5IIf4FE008638; Tue, 18 Jun 2002 14:41:04 -0400 X-Reply-To: Chris Beggy Original-Lines: 43 Original-X-Trace: lackawana.kippona.com 1024425660 8629 207.8.195.148 (18 Jun 2002 18:41:00 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@kippona.com X-gpgkeyid: 0x8060510A X-fingerprint: 6012 F8F8 29B3 67E4 0604 BCD2 F882 88AE 8060 510A Cancel-Lock: sha1:ONgZuW8/Fy0RxgFshdWC6ZIt8Ww= Original-To: guile-user@gnu.org Errors-To: guile-user-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: guile-user@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: General Guile related discussions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.user:610 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.guile.user:610 Neil Jerram writes: > Chris> See what he has to say about: > > Chris> 1. language versioning > Chris> 2. compatibility between versions > Chris> 3. interface stability > > Er... not a lot. It's a great article, but I noticed nothing in > particular on these subjects. Rather, it's all about designing a > language so that the community can help grow it, and in particular > about why he thinks that Java needs overloaded operators. > > (Oh, perhaps that was your point ...?) Right :-) Thanks for reading and commenting. Steele doesn't talk about these because they are already decided issues, whose treatment is widespread in engineering and design cultures that I've seen. For lots of language/system designers (and users too), there's nothing interesting about language versioning, compatibility between versions, and interface stability: 1. A language release with a new version number is an improvement. 2. There is backward compatibility to old versions in the new system 3. Interfaces are stable. Deviations from any of these features are compensated by emulation modes, compiler, interpreter, or usage warnings; or a rename of the language or system. Progress is difficult without these features. This is my roundabout way of saying that stability, backward compatibility, and emulation are ways to continue using code you can't modify. That's an answer to ttn's (rhetorical?) question. These features ensure the ability to reuse and learn from working code someone, like ttn, has offered to share as well. The surprising difficulty to do that is my complaint about guile. Chris _______________________________________________ Guile-user mailing list Guile-user@gnu.org http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-user