Re: should GOOPS be built-in?

[<knotwell at knotwell dot f5 dot com>]

Maciej Jennifer Stachowiak writes:
 > Lack of documentation is also a major problem. But I am unsure where to
 > put the focus here. Obviously reference documentation for all
 > Scheme-accessible procedures and syntax is essential, and thanks to
 > Greg's work it's becoming a reality. But past that, what's most
 > important to build the kind of community that Guile needs to be a 
 > successful project? Should additional docs be targetted at people
 > using Guile from the Scheme level, either standalone or embedded in
 > an app, at people who want to embed Guile in applications, or at
 > people who are interested in hacking Guile itself? Should it be in
 > tutorial or user's guide form, or perhaps some more sparse form
 > still for internals docs?

Personally, I think mzscheme has a very nice internals document.  It's
available at the following url:

    http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/packages/doc/insidemz/index.htm

As a representative example, it seems nicely structured and contains
an appropriate amount of information.  Another somewhat different but
equally effective approach can be found in Chapter 10&11 of Oreilly's
"Writing Apache modules in Perl and C."

DISCLAIMER:  it's important to recognize that the authors of the above
examples were either:  getting paid or working/studying at a university.

Focus. . .well, I don't use guile as an embedded interpreter, but I
believe that should be its primary focus.  As such, I think priority
should be given to documenting the embedding process and
correspondingly, the behavior every function/variable designed for
external use. 

 > I would appreciate feedback on this issue.
 > 
 >  - Maciej

--Brad