On Wed 21 Oct 2009 18:45, l...@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes: > Andy Wingo <wi...@pobox.com> writes: > >> Sure, we need to make well-thought-out changes -- but our current >> policy of very extended C-level compatibility is very, very limiting, >> and a big energy drain. If we think we need to change a function >> interface, well, we just change it, and document the change as well -- >> perhaps even with a Coccinelle[0] patch. > > I’d probably be more conservative than you on API changes. For > instance, I think ‘scm_search_path()’ and ‘scm_primitive_load()’ should > be the same in 1.8 and 2.0 (at least at the C level, because in Scheme > it’s easy to retain compatibility with optional args.)
I'm OK with changing these ones back. I think we agree here. > Guile is a niche, and so is Scheme. Among those who develop > applications using Guile, I bet the vast majority does it on their free > time. (Me too.) But regarding user counts -- I still think we will have many more users in the future than we have had in the past. We should think of them, too... > Thus, I think Guile core should evolve hands in hands with its users, > making, indeed, only well-thought-out API changes. OK. I really do think we agree for the most part on this. I'd rather not spend any more energy on the question. Regards, Andy -- http://wingolog.org/
