[r6rs-discuss] What's up with the library names?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Anton van Straaten <anton at appsolutions.com> writes:

> It's likely to be at least as easy to add version specifications when 
> you find it's needed, as to do it in advance when you don't know 
> anything about the future version you're trying to protect against.

I don't think so.

Suppose you fetch a program that explicitly specifies which library
version it requires: either it runs, or it doesn't, in which case you
get a message telling what's missing on your system to actually run the
program.

Now, if you get a program that doesn't specify which version it
requires, you'll have to go through some tedious trial-and-error
process, as Abdulaziz mentioned earlier.

> The real benefit of version specifications is to allow you to specify 
> the version compatibility of your programs and libraries when you have 
> actual knowledge of the versions that they can work with.

You always have knowledge of the versions you program can work with: it
works at least with the version available on your system.  Then, why not
build this knowledge into your program?

Thanks,
Ludovic.