Re: [Chicken-hackers] CR #1142 and upcoming changes

[Mario Domenech Goulart]

Hi Felix, Oleg and all,

On Mon, 18 Aug 2014 22:43:19 +0200 (CEST) Felix Winkelmann <address@hidden> 
wrote:

> From: Oleg Kolosov <address@hidden>
> Subject: Re: [Chicken-hackers] CR #1142 and upcoming changes
> Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 23:08:23 +0400
>
>> On 08/18/14 20:41, Mario Domenech Goulart wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Mon, 18 Aug 2014 16:53:22 +0200 (CEST) Felix Winkelmann <address@hidden> 
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I'm not sure how to go on with the CR-related changes. 
>>>>
>>>> I wonder whether it isn't better to postpone releasing these changes,
>>>> by creating development branches and switch in one step to CHICKEN 5,
>>>> which would have a number of advantages over doing all that in a
>>>> piecewise fashion:
>>>>
>>> 
>>> Not related with removing units from the core, but since we are talking
>>> about CHICKEN 5, shouldn't we consider discussing some polemic topics
>>> like the support for Unicode and bignums in core?  Those are limitations
>>> that recently lead to some ugly hacks (some examples in [1]) and bugs
>>> (e.g., [2]).
>>> 
>> 
>> Or we can declare that CHICKEN 5 != 5.0 and go on with the breakage. I'm
>> concerned that trying to fit everything into 5.0 will never finish -
>> there could be lengthy discussions about proposed features and no
>> action. Personally, I think that modularizing the core is of utmost
>> importance now, fixing eggs and adding features could be postponed to
>> some later point releases.
>
> Very true - I fully agree with that. I think we have enough of core
> support for R7RS right now and the general direction is to remove
> stuff (i.e. move to eggs) instead of adding anything. We also should
> postpone further clean ups to a later point. 
>
> Adding bignums + utf8 will also be much easier with a smaller and
> and restructured core system, of course.
>
> (this all assumes we don't go mad while ripping everything apart...)

Sorry for the sudden jump to those topics. :-)

In fact, as a user, I was just trying to bring some topics that are
practical issues and that we could piggyback with the breaking changes
to make a major release.

I'm not sure reorganizing the core and making it smaller justifies a
major release.  I understand some changes caused by the core
reorganization may break code, but I'm looking at major releases from a
user standpoint.  What immediate benefit do those changes bring for
users?  Maybe R7RS support?  Are those changes worth the breakage?

Please, note that I'm not against those changes.  Not at all,
absolutely.  I'm totally for them.  I just wonder if they justify a
major release and and all the burden to maintain another major version.

I mentioned Unicode and bignums because, in my opinion, they are quite
important for practical applications, and the support CHICKEN provides
for them at the moment is not very appealing.  Since you mentioned a new
major release, why not making them part of it?  Of course the obvious,
realistic and straight-to-the-point answers are "lack of manpower" and
"lack of consensus on those topics", I know.

Best wishes.
Mario
-- 
http://parenteses.org/mario