Re: First look at Guile Std Library available

[Dale Mellor]

>>>>> "Richard" == Richard Todd <address@hidden> writes:

    Richard> Modules currently in the project, about 1/2 lifted from other
    Richard> sources, about 1/2 I wrote over the last couple weeks:

    Richard> * container queue:: Queues, Stacks, and Deques * logging logger::
    Richard> Logging mechanism * logging port-log:: A log handler that outputs
    Richard> to ports * logging rotating-log:: A log handler for rotating text
    Richard> file logs * math minima:: Finding minimum values of functions *
    Richard> math primes:: Functions dealing with prime numbers * os process::
    Richard> Manipulating and creating process chains * search basic:: Classic
    Richard> searching algorithms * string completion:: Facilities for things
    Richard> like TAB-completion * string soundex:: Soundex Algorithm * string
    Richard> transform:: Transformations of strings * string wrap:: String
    Richard> wrapping and filling functions * term ansi-color:: Colors text with
    Richard> ANSI sequences


   This is just a knee-jerk reaction I got on reading the e-mail, but without
looking into your work in any detail, and is probably more useful as a talking
point amongst the Guile community than a direct comment.

    The collection of modules seems to be something of a hodge-podge of utility
libraries (just because PERL and Python do it this way doesn't mean we have to),
and overlaps with other stuff we already have (notably ice-9 and slib). I think
that we should move towards developing some 'standard' libraries as separate,
community-managed projects.

- a low-level wrapper around libc (simple procedure definitions which reflect
    those in libc, much of which is already in ice-9, and a lot of the rest is
    hardwired in Guile anyway - it just needs documenting in one place)

- a library which provides UNIX functionality presented in a lispish programming
    paradigm (this should be Guile's workhorse UNIX interface, and is
    essentially a wrapper around the above library). Maybe add in here such
    things as string completion, ANSI colours, soundex...

- a library of lispish containers, iterators and algorithms (akin to the C++
    STL; much of which is slib)

- a library of mathematical algorithms (akin to the good ol' NAG routines; these
    will probably be better written in C and exposed to Guile through a thin
    wrapper)

                                   My two cents for the day,
                                                Dale

http://rdmp.org:20202
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