Re: Argh! Module system frustration.

[Marius Vollmer]

Neil Jerram <address@hidden> writes:

> Presumably the "typical" case for doing `define's in C will be in an
> init function that is being called via `load-extension'.  And in this
> case, (current-module) will already be the Scheme module that calls
> `load-extension', which is probably where you want your primitives to
> be.  So you typically don't need scm_c_module_define; you can use
> scm_c_define instead.
> 
> Is that right?

Yep.

>     Marius> Hmm, well, that's not a very constructive position.  I
>     Marius> think I'm going to write some paragraphs for the manual of
>     Marius> how we intent people to use libguile with C programs, both
>     Marius> for adding an extension language to an existing
>     Marius> application, and for writing extensions to Guile itself,
>     Marius> that will then be the basis for applications written in
>     Marius> Scheme.
> 
> We should coordinate, as
> 
> - I've recently added some discussion to the manual that is quite
>   close to this subject, and was planning to continue this discussion.
>   See the `Programming Options' node (doc/ref/program.texi in CVS
>   unstable) for what's there already.

Excellent!  Please tell me what part I should work on.

I was thinking about showing people how to put their new primitives
into a module, how to make that module visible in guile-user, and how
to evaluate code in guile-user.

Then show some examples of how to let the user actually influence the
behavior of the application (letting the user set variables, calling
out the user supplied functions, etc.)

Then try to point out the advantages (and disadvantages) of packaging
an application as a library.

> - The general area of modules and variables etc. is also high on my
>   list of doc to work on next.  (In fact I was planning to do this
>   tonight, but now I'll wait a bit!)  This priority is motivated by
>   the frequency of related questions on the mailing list.

Yes.  If you can provide a framework where reference information needs
to be filled in, that would it make easy for others to provide that
information.