Re: The GH interface. (was: Patch for gh.h)

[Rob Browning]

Neil Jerram <address@hidden> writes:

> Does this mean that we should add stuff to GH to make it more
> functional?  IMO, no.  The basic problem here (for GH) is that the
> vast majority of the scm_ interface is _already_ portable and stable,
> and so there's no value for GH to add.  If we tried to make the GH
> interface functionally equivalent to the scm_ interface, the vast
> majority of GH would be a duplicate with no extra value in it.

I tend to agree completely, but perhaps I'm missing something.

> - invent a macro SCM_INTERNAL, and use it in libguile header files to
>   mark everything not considered portable, stable and appropriate for
>   external use (then Guile would #define SCM_INTERNAL, but
>   applications should normally not do so)
> 
> - design and add portable equivalent scm_ interfaces for the few
>   things like scm_internal_catch that aren't naturally portable and
>   stable already.

I like this idea.

> Given that GH does exist, I think we should continue supporting it,
> but get the documentation right, and probably not extend it.

And in the long run, we could unify the gh_ and scm_ systems, perhaps
renaming the useful gh_ stuff to be scm_, and leave #defines behind
for a while (or forever if we don't care about deprecating gh_).  I'm
not saying we *should* do this, but we could, and for new users, given
proper documentation, I think one consistent interface would be less
confusing.

FWIW

-- 
Rob Browning <address@hidden> PGP=E80E0D04F521A094 532B97F5D64E3930