Re: [MIT-Scheme-devel] working directory

[Taylor R Campbell]

   Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 06:46:42 -0700
   From: address@hidden (Matt Birkholz)

   How about renaming with-working-directory-pathname
   "with-DEFAULT-directory-pathname", and set-working-directory-pathname!
   "set-PROCESS-current-working-directory!"?  Then the two procedures
   will not appear to be related, and we might avoid these frustrated
   expectations.

I think it would be better to make WITH-WORKING-DIRECTORY-PATHNAME and
SET-WORKING-DIRECTORY-PATHNAME! match semantics and both interact with
the operating system.  You can always hack *DEFAULT-PATHNAME-DEFAULTS*
if you don't want to interact with the operating system, and just want
to influence MERGE-PATHNAMES.

   I just wish to emphasize that the runtime makes frequent use of
   merge-pathnames, such that the OS never sees a relative pathname.
   The frobbing of the cwd is, I think, appropriately confined to ux-
   procedures like ux-make-subprocess.

The runtime doesn't guarantee that the OS never sees a relative
pathname.  If you want, you can set *DEFAULT-PATHNAME-DEFAULTS* so
that it does.  You can also set *DEFAULT-PATHNAME-DEFAULTS* so that it
doesn't.

   I AM trying to put the brakes on loading up threads with tons of bells
   and whistles.  I want to spawn threads with wild abandon, e.g. in
   Edwin every time it needs to load an image, fontify a buffer, or
   animate anything.

I want to spawn threads with wild abandon, too.  That's why I want to
make sure they don't interfere.  I don't care how fast they run if
they render Scheme unusably unreliable.