Re: What is Guile?

[Ricard Mira]

Kevin Ryde wrote:
> Ricard Mira <address@hidden> writes:
> > But above all, we plan to make Guile a
> > *multi-lingual* environment, which will allow users to extend programs
> > using their favorite extension languages.
>
> I'd be wary of emphasising that,

Maybe I emphasized the multi-lingual aspect too much, but I think we
should emphasize it a bit, since it seems the fundamental feature in
the design of Guile.  (But we should do that in a grammatically
correct way -- thanks for the correction, Thamer!).

> since it's not true now,

If it is the fundamental feature in the design of Guile, we should
mention it even before it is implemented.  But we should make it clear
that it is not implemented yet, of course.

> and seems
> unlikely to be so in the near future.

Emphasizing it shows that it is the fundamental feature and that we
are serious about it, and helps speed up the process of implementing
it, I think.  (So the Guile home page should mention it again.)

> For what it's worth, I quite like the existing text.  It's informal
> but seems to have a fairly logical sequence.

My proposal says basically the same as the existing text and in the
same order, but I believe something as simple as "Guile is the GNU
multi-lingual extensibility interpreter" is needed.  It makes Guile
much more understandable (at least to me), because it structures
things.

The remaining text in the "What is Guile?" node in my proposal expands
a little on that, and the menu refers the reader to subnodes that
explain things even further.  Those subnodes would contain the
existing text you refer to and also the contents of
'workbook/policy/goals.text', because I think there needs to be
additional introductory text.