Hi Wang & the SRFI 261 list,
Some of these names are confusing or ignore the terminology used in
the SRFI itself:
* SRFI 146 provides two different libraries, (srfi 146) &
(srfi 146 hash), but is just called "mappings".
* SRFI 153 provides *ordered* sets ("osets", in the SRFI), but is
given the name "sets". This is vague.
* 196 should be called "ranges", not "range object".
* "pictures" is too general a name for SRFI 203, which implements a
specific picture-drawing language from the SICP textbook.
* Simple mistakes: SRFI 219 is called "define", & SRFI 221 is called
"higher-order-lambda". SRFI 219 is the higher-order lambda SRFI &
is unrelated to 221 ("Generator/accumulator sub-library").
253 is called "type-chec[k]ing".
* Some names, like "mixing-definitions-and-expressions", are
needlessly long. Finding short names is notoriously tough, but
standardizing a long, ugly name for the sake of standardizing
*some* name is a bad idea.
There is also the problem of the omitted SRFIs, which Daphne has
said a great deal about.
Another problem related to Daphne's points is more subtle: Not all
SRFIs state that everything in them should be provided by a single
library. An especially problematic example is SRFI 146, which exports
the same identifiers from different libraries. But the problem is
general: someone might split an implementation of SRFI 189 into (srfi
:189 maybe) and (srfi :189 either), for example. The SRFI itself,
like many others, doesn't state an opinion on the matter. I'm not
sure I like the idea of imposing a monolithic Scheme library name
on SRFIs whose authors didn't give a specific library structure.
I appreciate the work it took to come up with all of these names,
but I also think naming is hard. It requires a lot of thought &
careful reading of every (!) SRFI library & SRFI *sublibrary* you
intend to name. The name should reflect the SRFI's language & its
author's intentions, not just its title or abstract.
My preference is for SRFI 261 to stick to library-name formats & to
leave the names themselves alone.
Regards,
Wolf
--
Wolfgang Corcoran-Mathe <[email protected]>
