Re: [Chicken-hackers] Made a start with CHICKEN 5 proposal

[John Cowan]

Felix Winkelmann scripsit:

> I basically agree, but please note that UTF8-aware string-mutation
> would have to invole "become!", which is very inefficient.

True, but it is also very rare in core: only 8 uses, most of which
could be easily removed.  (I exclude of course the
SRFI-13 and SRFI-14 libraries themselves.)

> Again, you are basically right, but currently we can distinguish
> between numeric types by testing a single bit. Any additional numeric
> type will have a performance cost. We also will need a C API to access
> bignums, and it's not clear to me how to handle bignums being passed
> to foreign functions (simply throw an error?) Many ugly issues are
> hiding in the details.

Note my previous post on bignums vs. biggernums.  If there is also a
way to pass arbitrary exact integers as strings, that should do it.

> >> * Please use long, explicit library names, it's easier to remember
> >>   ("there are many ways to abbreviate something, but only one way not
> >>   to" - I forgot who said this, John will tell me, I'm sure.) 

It's the .sig of David B. Lamkins, but whether he invented it, he doesn't say.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        address@hidden
Ambassador Trentino: I've said enough. I'm a man of few words.
Rufus T. Firefly: I'm a man of one word: scram!    --Duck Soup