Re: [MIT-Scheme-devel] Module system?

[Chris Hanson]

On Sun, Aug 30, 2009 at 9:03 PM, Taylor R Campbell<address@hidden> wrote:
>   Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:16:38 -0700
>   From: address@hidden (Matt Birkholz)
>
>   You did not follow the common practice of providing an initialization
>   procedure, like this:
>
>           (define foo)
>
>           (define (initialize-package)
>             (set! foo (+ bar 1)))
>
> Quite frankly, I think that most such initialization procedures are
> silly.

I agree.  The only place I use them is in the runtime system, and then
only because the cold boot is tricky enough to require them.  outside
the runtime system, it's usually sufficient to specify the load order,
which can be done in the .pkg file.

>   And you used (load-package-set "test") but did not put your package
>   descriptions in load order.
>
> It should not be my job to topologically sort a partial order of
> dependencies; my job should be only to identify the individual edges.

Agreed.

> Consensus?  Ha!  I hardly expect that any time soon.  But I hope I
> haven't discouraged you from thinking about module systems -- I just
> want to make sure that we don't put ourselves into a state of an
> incrementally kludged CREF that works sort of well enough most of the
> time that we never become motivated to do something better, or at
> least I don't want us to become more entrenched in that state.

Agreed.  CREF shouldn't be improved; it should be replaced.  Failing
that, it should be left in its current state as a reminder why we need
something better.

> I have, no doubt, been too terse in this discussion.  I need to write
> up in a more presentable format some of my thoughts on module systems,
> and an overall idea of what problems they must solve and how they can
> solve them.  I hope to do so some time this week, now that I have a
> little time on my hands.

That would be great.  Although you claim we have very different
approaches to module systems, I think that's unlikely.  If you were to
write this down I bet I'd agree with most of it.