[plt-dev] make eval namespace argument mandatory

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 5:48 PM, Ryan Culpepper <ryanc at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> For racket, I propose we make the namespace argument to the 'eval' function
> mandatory. It's currently optional, and one-arg 'eval' is an attractive
> nuisance. If programmers have to specify the evaluation context---especially
> if they have to read up on namespaces to figure out how to get one---they
> are less likely to expect magical behavior from one-arg 'eval'.

I agree.

> For scheme, I think we should leave it alone but perhaps mark it as
> deprecated in the docs.
>
> The same argument could in principle be made for anything that implicitly
> uses (current-namespace), but I think 'eval' is by far the largest source of
> problems.

I would also suggest than anything the operates on the
current-namespace *without* at least an optional namespace argument be
fixed.  A few examples are: `namespace-require',
`namespace-require/copy', `namespace-symbol->identifier',
`namespace-syntax-introduce'.

-- 
sam th
samth at ccs.neu.edu