creating classes at runtime

[Robert Nikander <rob at encodia dot biz>]

I'm looking for a way to create instances from classes defined in .scm 
files that are written at runtime.
Is there a recommended way to do this?  I'm guessing that (load file) 
is the way, but it's behavior is surprising me.

I'm calling (load "foo.scm") and I thought that any define-simple-class 
in foo.scm would be available via Class.forName.  But 
Class.forName("FooClass") throws ClassNotFoundException.  I can, 
however, create a FooClass with (make <FooClass>).  I also notice that 
if I rewrite and reload foo.scm, the (make <FooClass>) will create an 
instance of the new class.  How does this work?  I thought Java 
couldn't redefine a class once it was loaded?

Right now, I'm thinking I can instantiate the dynamically created class 
like this:

(write-scm-file file-name)
(load file-name)
(eval `(make ,class-name))

Is there a better way?

Rob