Re: Names in libguile

[Mikael Djurfeldt <mdj at mdj dot nada dot kth dot se>]

A few more items:

Names, in general, have an internal left-to-right order of increasing
specificity: scm_ is least specific.  It is often followed by some
type, like `stack', and, finally, the operation.  Example:
scm_stack_length.

There are exceptions, though:

* If a name is already established at the Scheme level, this defines
  the C name through the translation scheme.

* According to the rule, we should have `SCM_SMOB_DATA_SET', but we
  instead have `SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA'.  Generally, `set' should be placed
  as far left as possible:

  `port-filename'       scm_port_filename
  `set-port-filename!'  scm_set_port_filename_x

  SCM_SMOB_DATA
  SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA

* Guile has a lot of history with lots of different strange names.
  Perhaps a major name overhaul can be done at the same time as we go
  through Guile's interfaces to checks soundness and theoretical
  properties such as type safety.  We *should* be a bit careful with
  name changes in order not to break existing application code.