[slime-devel] Re: contrib branch

[Tobias C. Rittweiler]

Helmut Eller <heller at common-lisp.net> writes:

> Well, if we provide some default configuration which loads almost all
> contribs, people will mostly likely expect that that configuration
> works reasonably well.  And we will--perhaps only
> subconsciously--spend a lot of time on that configuration, even if we
> don't use it.

Shouldn't people who make changes to Slime try to introduce as little
breakage as possible, including the contribs? (I.e. at least that
loading everything should introduce no obvious regression.)


> It's also more likely that contrib modules depend on each other when
> contrib authors know that some other module is in the default
> configuration.  I don't say that all contrib modules must be prefectly
> isolated from each other, but those contribs which depend only on the
> core are probably easier to maintain.

I'd still like to see swank.lisp split into swank-utils.lisp for exactly
that purpose. The point of swank-utils.list is that it should contain
shared functionality between core and contribs (and among the contribs
themselves). Because it's supposed to contain _well abstracted_, generic
utility functionalities, people are pressured to come up with, and to
use abstractions in their code.

  -T.