Re: [Chicken-hackers] CR #1142 and upcoming changes

[Felix Winkelmann]

> In fact, as a user, I was just trying to bring some topics that are
> practical issues and that we could piggyback with the breaking changes
> to make a major release.
> 
> I'm not sure reorganizing the core and making it smaller justifies a
> major release.  I understand some changes caused by the core
> reorganization may break code, but I'm looking at major releases from a
> user standpoint.  What immediate benefit do those changes bring for
> users?  Maybe R7RS support?  Are those changes worth the breakage?
> 
> Please, note that I'm not against those changes.  Not at all,
> absolutely.  I'm totally for them.  I just wonder if they justify a
> major release and and all the burden to maintain another major version.
> 
> I mentioned Unicode and bignums because, in my opinion, they are quite
> important for practical applications, and the support CHICKEN provides
> for them at the moment is not very appealing.  Since you mentioned a new
> major release, why not making them part of it?  Of course the obvious,
> realistic and straight-to-the-point answers are "lack of manpower" and
> "lack of consensus on those topics", I know.

I understand your concerns, but doing all the planned changes piece by
piece will be a massive maintenance effort and the compatibility hacks
required to have something halfway working during the transition will
be even more. I also hate forcing users into upgrading - I always
detested this in other software and would like to spare those that
need a working system, for whatever reason.

I also don't see a reason _not_ to consider adding the features you
talk about, but it shouldn't be the main driving force. If we can
provide support for this, fine! But someone has to implement it (of
course)

So I think: let's just see how well we get along. We should definitely
look into what would be required for bignum/unicode support, if
someone is willing to evaluate this.


felix