Re: cell

[Masao Uebayashi]

> it's important to not overexpose the Guile internals in the reference
> manual (or any user manual).

Agreed - but I think that the internal behavier should be exposed to
some extent, in a good manner.

I have been really impressed by the Environmental Model figures
presented in Chapter 3 in `SICP'.  It seems to me that the model is
next to the best way to show novice programmers how programs
works. (though it looks to abstract/simplify things too much).

I'd hope that the Guile manual includes more figures to help users
understand things without reducing materials about Guile's internal.

> it's fine to write "smob objects have a two-word header and (maybe)
> data".  but explaining, in the _user_ documentation, that all
> non-immediate Guile objects have a header cell and (maybe) data is
> IMHO not very useful -- if tomorrow someone decides to write, say, a
> mostly-copying allocator for Guile, then these things will change.

`mostly-copying allocator'? Ah, thanks for providing another asignment
to learn. :)

Thanks, M

---
Masao Uebayashi <address@hidden>    --- We like raw eggs.