`scheme-script' and multiple Scheme installations David Rush (12 Mar 2001 08:27 UTC)
Re: `scheme-script' and multiple Scheme installations sperber@xxxxxx (20 Mar 2001 10:44 UTC)
Re: `scheme-script' and multiple Scheme installations David Rush (20 Mar 2001 11:36 UTC)
Re: `scheme-script' and multiple Scheme installations sperber@xxxxxx (20 Mar 2001 12:47 UTC)

`scheme-script' and multiple Scheme installations David Rush 12 Mar 2001 08:27 UTC

I have a basic problem with the specification of 'scheme-script' as
the *official* SRFI-22 name for the Scheme script interpreter. I
personally have 10 different schemes installed (S2 *is* a portability
project) of which 7 have (intentionally) useful scripting
interfaces. Of those, perhaps 4 are R5RS 'out of the box' (e.g. PLT
requires that you load a special library module to get hygienic
macros). *All* of them extend Scheme in different ways s.t. I would
prefer to use PLT for a script that did GUI interactions (as I would
use wish) but I'd use Scsh for the anything doing IETF RFC networking
(because of the excellent SUNET package).

I just don't see how forcing them all to use a single name in 'exec'
space will help anything. I'd prefer to look at 'scheme-script' as a
meta-name, because frankly, none of R5RS, SRFI-0, or SRFI-7 provides
enough functionality to do significant scripting. We all already knew
that, or we wouldn't be working on SRFIs, but until the day that there
is a regexp SRFI, a socket SRFI, etc I think that maintaining some
flexibility in the precise choice of interpreter is important.

Perhaps the *logical* conclusion is that this SRFI is misguided, but I
don't really think so. The standardization of command-line args and
invocation conventions would greatly ease the mental burden of writing
scripts for *any* implementation (since *every* implementation must
address those issues). I would just like to see the door left open for
utilizing multiple implementations.

david rush
--
To get anywhere with programming we must be free to discuss and
improve subjective phenomena. and leave the objective metrics to
resultants such as bug reports.
	-- The Programmer's Stone (Alan Carter & Colston Sanger)