Re: scheme@(guile-user)> considered ugly

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

Andy Wingo <address@hidden> writes:

> I'm thinking that our prompt is really ugly. Sure, it's useful to know
> what language and module you're in (though you probably know the
> language). But I was just going over some docs and the prompt really
> makes it hard to read. The interaction transcript went like this:

I agree that this example is hard to read.  That said, in reality,
there’d be some color (hello jao! :-)) and a blinking cursor, which make
things much better.

Also, FWIW, it’s customary to have $PS1 = address@hidden:\w]\$’, which is
graphically close to ‘LANG@(MODULE)>’.

> But what if we elide the language and deparen the module:
>
>      guile-user> (define abc "hello")

Yes, that’s clearer.

Still, I had got used to seeing the language name, and it’s probably
good marketing-wise (though currently only Scheme works at the REPL, but
shh!)  So I don’t know.  No strong feelings.

Another option would be to keep the prompt but use a simpler one in the
manual, as is often done with shell transcripts.

Thanks,
Ludo’.