Re: [Chicken-users] whither the module system

[Felix Winkelmann]

On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 18:01:31 -0700, Miles Egan <address@hidden> wrote:

> I can't find any docs on the module system in the most recent release.  
> Has it been dropped?

Yes, the old module system has been dropped. It was an awful hack and 
didn't
work in the general case (like introducing identifiers at macro-expansion
time)

> If so, how do chicken programmers protect themselves from namespace 
> collisions.

There a generally several ways.

1) Use separate compilation and export toplevel bindings with (DECLARE 
(EXPORT ...)) 2) Use the syntax-case module system (which is pretty 
powerful), but note that this
 does *not* work with separate compilation.
3) Use the STRUCTUREs thingy (http://www.call-with-current- 
continuation/structures.html),
 which doesn't work for macros, but is a relatively clean method of 
handling
 namespace collision. It's also fully higher-order and compositional.


cheers,
felix