Re: Bad deprecation warnings in numbers.c

[Neil Jerram]

>>>>> "Dirk" == Dirk Herrmann <address@hidden> writes:

    Dirk> On 1 Apr 2002, Neil Jerram wrote:
    >> There is a group of deprecation warnings in (stable) numbers.c that
    >> say, for example:
    >> 
    >> scm_c_issue_deprecation_warning ("`scm_mkbig' is deprecated. "
    >> "Use `scm_i_mkbig' instead.");
    >> 
    >> No!!!!!
    >> 
    >> This directly contradicts our aim of using `scm_i_' to mark Guile
    >> internals, which libguile users shouldn't use _at all_!
    >> 
    >> What's the right thing here?  Could we do it before 1.6?

    Dirk> IMO, people should not use any of these functions at all.
    Dirk> We should try to remove their use from other places within
    Dirk> guile as well.  The reason is, that these functions depend
    Dirk> on the implementation of the bignums, which should be
    Dirk> considered the secret knowledge of the number
    Dirk> implementation.  It is, btw., likely to change in the not
    Dirk> too far future, if for example we manage the switch to the
    Dirk> GNU mp library.

OK, but...

- can you think of any good reasons why developers might have been
  using these functions anyway?

- if there are such reasons, what could we suggest to developers that
  they do instead?

If there are no valid reasons for using these functions, we should
change the messages to say that "this function was never intended to
be part of the libguile API".  (And then the mailing list may later
produce a valid reason for us! :-)

If there are valid reasons, we should change the messages to indicate
what developers should _really_ be doing instead.

Regards,
        Neil