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Re: setf.scm


Per Bothner <bothner@cygnus.com> writes:

> I believe it is should be "dynamic" (i.e. setter evalues PROC at
> run-time), and that is what I have implemented.  Of course, if you
> allow the compiler to inline or statically resolve some procedures,
> then you can also inline or statically resolve the call to setter.

I don't like the idea of extending Scheme with the new mechanism of a
binding between procedure objects.  Of course you could look upon it
as a simple table lookup, but it is not good to encourage people to
use such a mechism for the elementary operation of storing a value in
a location.

I would very much like Guile to be a Scheme interpreter + useful
libraries.  I'm much more afraid of language bloat than of code bloat.

I'd also like the Guile language (whatever that will finally be) to be
easy to compile to efficient code.  I can see how read-only bindings
in the new module system can help the compiler to determine which
procedures can be inlined.  Should we now introduce
read-only-procedure-bindings so that the compiler can do the same
thing for setters?

I don't think the new set! syntax is useful enough to motivate the
added complexity to the language and the new constraints for new Guile
interpreters and compilers.

/mdj