[Chicken-hackers] Re: .exports not renamed w/ CMake Windows build

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Kon Lovett wrote:
> The exports of posixunix & posixwin have an intersection but also a 
> difference. The exports of pcre are a superset of regexunix & pregexp 
> (which I think are the same).
>
> I don't think the differences in the exports are really an issue. The 
> units are called 'posix' & 'regex' in the manual.
>
> Sorry, Brandon, but I think they must be renamed.

I'm asking whether lumping all these under one name is a basic error of 
Chicken's design.  What do Chicken programs do when ported from Unix to 
Windows?  Just gratuitously fail, looking for exports that aren't 
there?  I'll wager that historically, programs haven't been ported from 
Unix to Windows very often, so the issue hasn't come up.

I see at least 2 correct philosophies for dealing with this:

1) keep the .exports different.  Make the programmer deal with whether 
they're using posixunix, posixwin, pcre, pregexp, or regexunix.

2) make the .exports identical in content, and create stub functions for 
whatever's missing, perhaps giving a diagnostic error.  That way when 
the program dies, at least the user knows why.

In reaction to this, you might say, "Well I just want it to be (use 
posix) and (use regex).  I don't want to type anything new / different 
than what's in the manual, I just want it to work."  But it isn't going 
to work.  At least not generally speaking; it only works if you happen 
to use a supported subset.  I am saying, the programmer has to deal with 
the available functions somewhere, somehow, if the program is to be 
well-behaved.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every