Re: [MIT-Scheme-devel] Parsing the file attributes line.

[Joe Marshall]

On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 5:33 PM, Taylor R Campbell <address@hidden> wrote:
>   Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 20:14:59 -0700
>   From: Joe Marshall <address@hidden>
>
>   Yeah, I agree, but there aren't many other options if you want the
>   source code to be somewhat portable.
>
> Portable?  What does that mean in this context, and what does that
> accomplish?

*Somewhat* portable as in `no weird reader objects'.

 It is simply a way of adding a little in-band meta-information about
the file.  It can't be
a scheme form because evaluation of forms happens after reading is
finished.  It *could*
be a funny reader token, but there are no portable ways to add funny
reader tokens
that don't cause other scheme systems to gag.  A comment has the advantage that
it shouldn't interfere with other scheme systems.

I expect that at some time someone will want to port a case sensitive
or keyword laden program into MIT Scheme.  A little edit to the file attributes
line and it should more or less work.


-- 
~jrm