On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:45:14 -0500, Andre van Tonder <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm not sure that is the case. At least in R6 Larceny, you can write the > portable > > (import (foo)) > > and let the implementation worry about finding the library for you. In > other words, finding the library is not part of the programmer's > responsibility. Now, there may be some implementation-specific > restrictions on > where you may /put/ the library in the file system, and what you may > call it, > but that is not reflected in any way in the syntax of the portable > program, and > IMO it is not the place of a spec to really nail this down. Sure, I can write (import (foo)) in any implementation, and then also write a chart of N different methods I need to use to get an implementation to actually *do* something sensible with that. It's an unnecessary bother, and I don't think it requires importing all of POSIX just to talk about generalized notions of "files" and "directories" that could be used to nail down how the library is found a little bit more. And if all else fails, I'd love just to be able to concatenate the libraries my program requires together with a top-level program and hand the whole kit-and-kaboodle to my implementation. Ultimately the implementation is responsible for reading a top-level program and its dependent libraries in some fashion, compiling, and executing the result. Unless the concatenate-the-world solution is endorsed, they must be separated in some fashion in the input. I don't think it's too much to speak loosely about directories and files and leave the specifics of how that actually works up to the implementation. The result will be that implementations sharing a platform will do the same thing where the concepts of "directories" and "files" have clear definitions, and that your interpretive dancers will have to wear placards describing the locations of the libraries they implement. -- Brian Mastenbrook [email protected] http://brian.mastenbrook.net/ _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
