Re: [Chicken-users] Re: SRFI 41

[John Cowan]

Phil Bewig scripsit:

> The guiding principle in any library must be to keep it small and simple.  I
> quoted Saint-Exupéry in SRFI-41, but could have quoted Einstein "Everything
> should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."  Occam's Razor also
> applies.

The analogy is false, at least as far as Einstein and Occam are concerned.
They were talking about keeping the number of explanatory principles
small.  But tools are not principles.

The smallest and simplest library for lists in Scheme consists of car,
cdr, cons, pair?, and '().  Would you really be happy in a world where
that's all you get, and the rest is "just part of your program"?  When I
ask a builder to construct a house for me, I do not expect him to begin
by cutting down trees, digging clay for bricks, and mining iron ore
for nails and screws.  Nor do I expect him to reinvent drywall from
first principles.

> SRFI-1 and streams-ext violate that principle to their own detriment.

The point of a library, like that of a tool chest, is to provide tools
considered generally useful.  If your tool chest is half-empty, you
wind up pounding nails with a screwdriver, or in the extreme case,
instantiating Greenspun's Tenth Law.  Too-simple libraries make
too-complex programs.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        address@hidden
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There are
no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that
they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --The Hobbit