Re: [PATCH] Avoid `SCM_VALIDATE_LIST ()'

[Neil Jerram]

2008/9/7 Mikael Djurfeldt <address@hidden>:
>
> >From my experience, there was a huge improvement in scheme program
> development time when we moved to real type-checking of lists from the
> kind of type-checking you seem to want to re-introduce. It's much
> easier to debug code if you can assume that hangs are not due to
> circular data structures.

Thanks for that data point!

> Having been part of Guile development for some time, it's sad to see
> how much work is put into changing code back and forth due to
> vacillating development goals.

(Oh dear, this seems to be my week for arguing with everybody... :-))

It is?  I am not aware of any other recent changes that fall into this
category, are you?

(It is precisely because this change is unique, IMO, in churning code
for no benefit, so I am getting so heavy about it! :-))

> It's apparent how important it is to
> have a written development policy with design decisions and
> motivations.

Apart from the VM work, there has been little development recently
that is big enough to merit or need an upfront design.  I would say we
have been mostly focussed for the last year on stability and
cross-platform support.

> Probably a lot of that should also be put directly into
> the code in the form of comments.

Agreed there!  The Guile code could use a lot more comments.

         Neil