Re: duplication of SRFIs

[Alex Shinn <alexshinn@xxxxxxxxx>]

Per Bothner wrote:

> Of course the SRFI processes *allows* duplicate "standards",
> but clearly that should be undesirable, except in the case of
> documenting existing practice.  That is not the case with
> SRFI-64 vs -78, as far as I know.

Well, there are many reasons to have duplicate standards, including
fundamentally incompatible designs, and arguably a certain amount of
healthy competition among SRFIs is a good thing.

On the other hand, it's not clear to me what the purpose of SRFI-78
is as opposed to SRFI-64.  It claims to be lightweight yet adds a
CHECK-EC form, which is unnecessary, pulls in a requirement for
SRFI-42, and doesn't seem to offer much more than running tests
inside an existing comprehension available once you are using
SRFI-42.  In exchange it removes any handling of exceptions, which
seems to be rather crippling for a test SRFI.

One might argue that the groups and filtering capabilities of SRFI-64
are heavy, and thus desire a trimmed down version, but in that case
it would be nice to use a compatible subset, as in the formatting
SRFIs 28 and 48.  You could even participate in the ongoing SRFI-64
discussion where the author has indeed been very receptive to
suggestions.


--
Alex