[Chicken-hackers] Merging of import, types and inline information

[Oleg Kolosov]

Hello All!

I’ve been thinking about an idea to merge module type and inline information 
into import libraries for a long time, and, before starting to hack, decided to 
ask for opinions in hope to produce useful discussion.

As you might remember we are working on CHICKEN based karaoke box firmware. The 
project keeps growing and the number of application modules almost approached 
100 already. Scrutinizer provides great assistance with that (a major selling 
point in comparison with other implementations, you should advertise it more 
IMO) but to fully utilise it across modules it needs to use exported type 
information. Hooking this into build system is a major hassle, especially 
during quick development when things are moved around/renamed.

So, what do you think about adding type/inline information unconditionally into 
the generated import library when emit-import-library options are supplied and 
using it from the import libraries found in the include paths when modules are 
used? In other words: ditch emit-type-file/types and 
emit-inline-file/consult-inline-file options completely and use the existing 
import library mechanisms for that because they are mandatory anyway. Maybe I’m 
not seeing the whole picture and there are some downsides.

-- 
Regards, Oleg
Art System