Systas and Guile

[Tom Lord]

In recent messages, I've pointed out several features of Systas that
ought to be in Guile.  I've pointed out features planned in in both
Systas and Guile, for which Systas provides a working starting point
and a plan.  I've pointed out ways in which the Systas code base is
easier to maintain than Guile's.  With the exception of the ()/#f
issue, none of my suggestions have met with any objection.

Were that all there was to it, the right thing to do would be obvious:
adopt Systas as the next version of Guile.  But there is a
complication: Guile has some features not found in Systas and it has
interfaces depended upon by other projects.

I'm asking the Guile maintainer and core developers to help with the
following tasks:


        1) Identify the interfaces upon which external projects
           depend.  Characterize the difficulty of either (a)
           modifying those projects to use an alternative interface,
           or (b) building a glue library to provide that interface to
           Systas, at least for a period of transition.


        2) Identify those features of Guile which are missing from
           Systas and characterize the desirability of retaining
           them and the difficulty of porting them to Systas.


        3) Begin to formulate a higher-level, longer term plan 
           for the design and architecture of Guile.


-t