[Chicken-users] Re: [Chicken-hackers] Suggestion for the ports unit: port-pipe

[Kon Lovett]

On Aug 8, 2010, at 11:32 PM, Jim Ursetto wrote:

> Moritz,
>
> I might call it port-reflect.
>
> I would make it an egg first and maybe if there is high enough  
> demand promote it to core.

AFAIK, there isn't a well defined method of reporting, let alone  
determining, "high enough demand". An automated "poll" of submitted  
code is possible but it doesn't touch the sources that constitute  
"applications". In any case such a direct search is probably not a  
good indicator of "hidh demand".

Say an extension in "high demand" uses a feature in "low demand"  
otherwise. Is this feature a candidate for the core? (Transitive  
closure to be applied here. ;-)

The situation of a feature set produced by the composition of core &  
extensions can be annoying - "why isn't it just here?" I don't have a  
good way of answering this. What is a "complete set of core features"  
analogous to the foundation of a building. (The metaphor eat you for  
lunch.)

I kinda think features only necessary for the compiler, interpreter,  
minimal language standard & basic platform concepts belong in the  
core. (And by core I mean the runtime library. Just to be clear.)

(The "basic platform concepts" is a really gray area; tcp, for  
example, is everywhere, except embedded systems, hum.)

<rant>
FWIW, I would like a configurable "core". One that allows for a "full  
language standard" (what ever that means) but can be built for minimal  
requirements.

  From something of a joy to develop with on a "workstation":

  - Full I18N (text, numbers, etc. - probably means a complete  
`format', SRFI 29, and more), Unicode strings, full numeric tower,  
weak references, ...

 To something deliberately constraining to run on "controller":

  - Fixed text, formats, etc., 7-bit ASCII character string, fixnum  
numerics, strong references, ...

I call the reification of the above `Fowl'. A family of runtimes, one  
of which looks like `Chicken'; somewhere near the middle of the above  
I guess.
</rant>

>
<snip>

Best Wishes,
Kon