r6rs libraries (was Re: role of guile-lib)

[Julian Graham]

Hey Neil,

>> Hey, sure -- although we'd still need a way to locate modules.  And
>> could we actually rely on other distributions?  My outsider impression
>> is that there was a minor revolt when R6RS was passed (but maybe the
>> library system was less offensive to people?).
>
> IMO no; I'd say the library system is one of the more offensive parts
> of R6RS.  Even so, I wouldn't object to someone trying to hack in a
> way of loading R6RS libraries into Guile.

My inclination is that because Guile's module system already has
almost all of the functionality of R6RS libraries, it might make sense
to support libraries by transforming them into module definitions.
Unfortunately, there's that nasty import levels thing to deal with.
It seems like that aspect of the library spec is attempting to resolve
some issues that (I think) Guile struggled with a while ago, re: the
handling of symbols in macros across module boundaries.  What's the
status of that?


Regards,
Julian