This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 103 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 103 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.
Thank you for the feedback. On Fri, 2009-12-25 at 20:11 +0100, GÃran Weinholt wrote: > Derick Eddington <derick.eddington@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > The new revision of SRFI 103 changes the file name extension for R6RS > > library files from .sls and .IMPL.sls to .r6rs-lib and .IMPL-r6rs-lib. > > Why did you make this change, To support multiple Scheme dialects; and to support system-specific files via a more useful general facility instead of a limited odd one; and to not encode the #\. character; and to have the R6RS extension name fit its purpose. For multiple dialects to use the same "SCHEME"-named environment variable, they must use different extensions to avoid same-named files of one dialect shadowing those of another. [1] The previous design for system-specific files was odd because it was limited to extending the file name extension with a system's name and it did so by using the #\. character which made an extension seem like nested extensions (like .tar.gz) and which required encoding the #\. character (to avoid a rare corner case name conflict). A system-specific extension is not nested extensions, it's not, e.g., an .ikarus file format nested in a .sls file format, it's a single extension and single format. Redesigning to support configurable extensions (which is a useful addition by itself and is already supported by some systems but the old design did not support it) and using it to support system-specific files solves all the above issues -- a general-purpose facility is used, the #\. character is freed from encoding, and system-specific extensions have the form of a single extension. .sls isn't good because it's too vague and susceptible to conflict with some other organizations' desire to use it. "S.L.S." meant "Scheme library source", but that's too vague because the extension needs to describe what file format and Scheme dialect because the nature of Scheme is multiple dialects and formats. I think I'm the person who popularized .sls, and I did so because I want an extension which describes the format/type of a file, but .sls fails to adequately do that so I redesigned to have an extension which does. > and does it mean that I'll be discouraged > From keeping my filenames as they are? Yes. That's one of the reasons why I made the renaming utility program. Files with .IMPL.sls extensions are no longer usable with SRFI 103 because they contain the #\. character. Files with .sls extension are still usable if you set the SCHEME_LIB_EXT environment variable to include it. I acknowledge this change is an inconvenience (but the renaming program lessens it). I think the new design is significantly better. I want this SRFI to support multiple dialects and to be useful for at least the next 15 years. I don't think avoiding the one-time inconvenience of file renaming is worth not having the better design. I just used the renaming program on your Industria collection. I started from nothing and followed the instructions at [2] and it took me 15 minutes (I also modified the renaming program to do .sps to .r6rs-prog and then ran your tests). (You can use the renamed files with a Scheme system supporting SRFI 103 such as my [3].) [1] http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-103/mail-archive/msg00085.html [2] http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-103/mail-archive/msg00083.html [3] https://code.launchpad.net/~derick-eddington/ikarus/ikarus.dev--SRFI-104 Merry solstice and praise the sun by feeding reindeer psychotropic red-and-white mushrooms and then consuming their urine :-) -- : Derick ----------------------------------------------------------------