So this is my revised suggestion for the startup thing. It's intended to resolve a few issues that bothered me for a while, and some new ones that were mentioned recently -- Jay's testing thing as well as the need for some way to write code that is run only when a file is executed directly. I think that it works well *and* manages to mesh well with the current set of command-line flags, as well as being backward compatible.
First, the thing that bugged me: `-m' is in theory a very convenient way to get some file into a generic script quickly, but it's not as convenient as it could be. There are two problems with it -- in the many times that I used `-m', I think that in each and every case I went through the same dance that demonstrate them. I start with a quick script, then realize that I want to make it a bit more generic -- so I wrap the toplevel code in a `main' definition. Then, look through `racket -h' and figure out which flag I need to use -- I remember that `-m' by itself doesn't work, so I need to find out whether I need to make it `-tm' or `-um' or whatever. once I find out the answer, I try to use it and then --always-- realize that I need to explicitly `provide' the `main' binding. That's an annoyance I'd like to get rid of -- not only it is something that I always forget, it's a kind of a boilerplate in the spirit of `class main ... public static void whatever': it's providing a binding where I don't really want it to be provided for anything except for use by the `-m' flag. (Yes, it's a *much* shorter and more pleasant boilerplate, but still it is one.) So here's my complete suggestion: 1. Add a `-R' or `--run' flag that takes in a name of a file and a function to run. Running `racket -R foo.rkt bar' does the same as running `racket -u- foo.rkt', and after it is required, a `bar' binding is pulled out from its namespace (no need to `provide' it), and applied on the usual arguments (the name of the script and the rest of the given flags). 1a. Probably better to make that `-R bar foo.rkt', so it's more convenient to use in script trampolines with some "$@" input. 2. BTW, `-um- foo.rkt' would *not* be the same as `-R foo.rkt main', because `-m' is disconnected from a specific module. That makes it still have some use as a more generic thing, but you pay for that with the verbosity of an explicit `provide'. 3. Change the default of If only configuration options are before the first argument, -u is added to If only configuration options are before the first argument, -R MAIN is added possibly with some other name -- `MAIN' is just the first thing I could think of that is not obnoxious for a command-line thing like `#%main', and that will not lead to any problems with existing code. 4. Make `racket/base' provide `MAIN' that is just the same as `void'. For compatibility, make `mzscheme' do the same too. This makes `MAIN' the Racket equivalent of Python's `__main__' thing. If you don't define it, things are pretty much the same as they are now. If you do, then your binding overrides the built-in one, and you get a nice and convenient point for a "when this module is executed directly" thing. -- ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) Eli Barzilay: http://barzilay.org/ Maze is Life! _________________________________________________ For list-related administrative tasks: http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/dev