Re: Name of the standard library

[Dr. Arne Babenhauserheide]

MSavoritias <email@msavoritias.me> writes:

> Dr. Arne Babenhauserheide kirjoitti 20.7.2024 klo 17.52:
>> Lassi Kortela <lassi@lassi.io> writes:
>>>> It would be easy to state in more places "the standard library of guile
>>>> is called ice-9 (see [history])".
>>> With no disrespect intended -- I understand it's a joke that was funny
>>> at one time -- "the standard library of Guile is called ice-9" sounds
>>> like "the unit of mass is called footballs". If so, why would a smart
>>> newbie learn more?
>> (I know that this is a paradoxical question; I’m pointing to it, because
>> *we actually do not know*, so maybe we should refrain from discussing
>> the hypothetical smart newbie when all of us who are here would by
>> definition not match that description)
> Just a note here, I am that newbie :)

By definition of the smart newbie given in the thread, you can’t be
that, because you did keep learning :-)

(but that’s just a tongue in cheek answer …)

> We should make it easier to learn guile over time.

I agree. I just disagree that this is the best way for that.

> I strongly disagree forcing newbies to go through the same things we
> did just to make a point.

That’s not the goal.

The goal is to avoid breaking existing tools, tutorials, and skills.


Is it worse to learn about ice-9, srfi, web, and rnrs,
or to learn from one tutorial about ice-9 and web,
and from the other about guile and (guile web)?


I’ve written and published a book about Guile.¹ The printed copies and
downloaded PDFs will for ever and ever include ice-9, because I cannot
change it. I could not, if I wanted. So if we change from ice-9 to
guile, that should have higher benefit than the cost of inconsistency
between old and new documentation.

Changing best practices causes soft trauma² to those who learned the old
ones.


And we inherently have different main namespaces: rnrs and srfi are not
going away. They are deeply engrained in our infrastructure.

Additionally we’d have to ask whether these should actually be in
(guile ...). (ice-9 match) is actually from chibi-scheme, just with
three shims added so the upstream code runs unmodified. Calling that
(guile ...) would falsely imply that it is implementation specific.


The deeper I look into it, the less I think that a (guile ...) module
would be a good idea.

Instead I now think that we need to check our documentation why people
don’t find the different namespaces early and effortlessly enough that
they are obvious.


¹ https://www.draketo.de/py2guile
² https://drewdevault.com/2019/11/26/Avoid-traumatic-changes.html
  — another one who got hit by Python 3


Best wishes,
Arne
-- 
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein,
ohne es zu merken.
draketo.de

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