[plt-dev] new language dialog, iii

On Jan 30, Robby Findler wrote:
> 
> I guess I have to implement a Scheme comment parser in drscheme now.
> 
> Blecch. I'm going to leave it alone for a while in the hopes that
> the specification gets simpler.

No -- I think that I should be the one implementing that, since I
should implement a proper function that does this whole thing.  But I
hope that there's something quick that Matthew can expose instead of
re-implementing that functionality.


> > No, I don't think that a sandbox is right in this case.  The thing
> > is that it might need to consult code anywhere in the filesystem,
> > or do whatever it wants to do to come up with the language.  So if
> > I were trying to use this in the context of some utility that uses
> > a sandbox then I wouldn't use *another* sandbox to do the `#lang'
> > -- instead, I'd arrange for that parsing to happen in the existing
> > user sandbox.  Translating this to drscheme -- I think that it's
> > best if you call this function from the user context, so it's
> > subject to the usual restrictions that drscheme puts on user code.
> 
> I can't call this from the user context (or at least I need to make
> a new one). DrScheme should run your program just like running it in
> mred-text (or whatever) would. It should also occasionally do extra
> evaluation here and there.

I don't follow why you can't run it from the user context.  The lang
reader code *should* be side-effect-free, so there shouldn't be any
visible changes if it's being used N times for any N.  If it's not
side-effect-free, then the language is what's buggy.


> > Re packaging -- given the amount of subtleties that need to be
> > addressed, it definitely should go in some library.  But what I
> > don't know exactly where to put it.  Is `syntax/lang-utils' too
> > lame?
> 
> syntax/ seems wrong, but I don't have any good ideas.

...and `lang/utils' is bad too...

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!