[asdf-devel] Should ASDF define many packages?

[Robert Goldman]

On 8/31/10 Aug 31 -3:33 PM, Nikodemus Siivola wrote:
> On 31 August 2010 22:03, Faré <fahree at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 31 August 2010 12:55, Nikodemus Siivola <nikodemus at random-state.net> wrote:
> 
>>> Exporting random internal utilities from ASDF is a terrible idea, IMO.
>>>
>> The utilities are not completely random. I use them, and other people use them.
> 
> The word was ill-chosen. What I ment was that they appear to have very
> little with the rest of ASDF looking from outside in.
> 
> Robert's point regarding lack of portable pathname wrangling tools is
> also well made.
> 
> Looking at the export list the following are the ones that "look
> random" to me -- having little obvious relation to res of ASDF:
> 
>             #:aif
>             #:appendf
>             #:coerce-name
>             #:ends-with
>             #:length=n-p
>             #:read-file-forms
>             #:remove-keys
>             #:remove-keyword
>             #:split-string
>             #:while-collecting
> 

Of these, I would say that COERCE-NAME, SPLIT-STRING, and probably
READ-FILE-FORMS are actually not random.  COERCE-NAME is something like
SYMBOL-NAME for ASDF:  SYMBOL-NAME is /not/ how you want to look up an
ASDF system.  SPLIT-STRING is used for filename wrangling.

READ-FILE-FORMS is used to wrangle configuration files.  It's a
borderline case.

The others seem more like programming utilities that could be dispensed
with.  I think we're probably stuck with AIF and APPENDF, but
WHILE-COLLECTING and some of the others might be safely dispensable.

cheers,
r