This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 38 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 38 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.
Marc Feeley <feeley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > > Marc Feeley <feeley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > So in the end the "write-showing-shared" procedure still needs > > > parameters. > > > > Depends. I am quite happy with it as it sits and am using the > > reference implementation to dump suffix-trees of 200+ KB documents. > > SRFIs should not be designed with a single user in mind, otherwise you > end up with a tool that is too special purpose. Duh. > When a tool (such as a procedure for writing data) has obvious > extensions, then the design has to allow such extensions. Actually I'm not sure that I agree that I/O procedures fall into ths category. I/O procedures tend to be *very* narrowly focussed because their intent is communication with a particular external entity. > Naming is important. I claim that procedures named > "write-showing-shared" or "write-with-pretty-printing" can't be fully > extensible, whatever their actual specification, because their name > suggests that their parameters (explicit or not) cannot modify their > main purpose (the use of an external representation that shows sharing > or the use of a pretty-printing format). For maximal extensibility > the name has to be neutral, and this is why "write" is appropriate. > It allows features that are orthogonal (sharing notation, pretty > printing, case sensitivity, etc) to be specified independently with no > bias towards a particular feature. I also have a bit of difficulty with the notion that even the features that you mentioned are orthogonal. Sharing notation and case-sensitivity, in particular, strike me as having significant overlap. It really just bring me back to my original point: it is in the lambda-nature of I/O procedures to be specific, not generic. From that POV, write-showing-shared is a useful addition to the toolbox. david rush -- Scheme: Because pure lambda calculus gets tedious after a while. -- Anton van Straaten (the Scheme Marketing Dept from c.l.s)