Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 15:50:05 -0400 (EDT) From: "Aaron S. Hawley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[As a MIT Scheme /user/ and not a developer, I'm replying to the users list.] I think the nomenclature of "package" found in comments in MIT/GNU Scheme sources is showing package dependencies (like what is done in C with #includes), and really just duplicates the correct package information that exists in some .pkg file. As I understand it (and an MIT Scheme developer or designer should correct me if I misunderstand), the .pkg files are intended only for two purposes: cross-referencing information and the automated generation of loaders for systems. While this is related to the environment in which a file is intended to be loaded, the information is not entirely analogous, it requires more effort than is necessary to extract the desired information, and the desired information may not even be present in the .pkg file, since the source file might not be a regular package in a regular system at all (e.g., the .edwin file). It is also, as far as I have been able to discern from the source, not very convenient to work with the package system during dynamic development -- seems to CREF operate pretty statically. I'm not so sure about the necessity for creating the package-local variable facility you propose, but I think you've argued well for bringing Edwin's buffer-local variable system up to snuff with Emacs's. Edwin supports something called "Edwin Variables" analogous to Emacs's "Local Variables". Perhaps you haven't taken a look at that yet. I would think that could set the `scheme-environment' variable as you wish. Yes, I'm aware of this, but it's somewhat less convenient for the purpose than I'd like, and it also departs from existing and well- established Lisp tradition. Also, it might be useful anyway to provide the -*- line local variables facility for other libraries to use. But you're right, their should be some consistency between Emacs and Edwin. Unfortunately, I've read Edwin can barely mimic version 18(?) of GNU Emacs. Well, there's a lot more to be done there and probably, unfortunately, not quite enough effort to accomplish it. I'm a bit more interested in a useful Scheme environment, though, not just an exact Emacs clone. (Also, I don't know of any Emacs library except a very recently made one (namely scheme48.el) that respects a local 'package' variable.) _______________________________________________ MIT-Scheme-users mailing list MIT-Scheme-users@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/mit-scheme-users
