On 2012-07-18, at 6:20 PM, will@ccs.neu.edu wrote:

> On Sun Jul 15 16:15:18 EDT 2012, Andy Wingo wrote:
>
>>>> Just as another data point, I've used and implemented both APIs.  I find
>>>> the bytevector formulation more useful.  (Incidentally, the assertion
>>>> that the "bytevector" name is without history is incorrect.)
>>>
>>> Fill us in on this, please?
>>
>> R6RS.
>
> Actually, the bytevector name and basic API date back to 1984 or 1985.
> Bytevectors were provided by MacScheme (1985), and I believe they were
> provided by PC Scheme (1984) as well.
>
> Will

I want to point out that I was saying the proposed *API* for bytevectors has little history, i.e. bytevector-u8-ref, etc. The important point is that the u8vector API, where bytevectors are seen as a vector of bytes (as the name implies), has been widely implemented and there is lots of existing code and Scheme implementations (and 2 SRFIs) which use that API.

Why should R7RS specify a less widely used API when the bytevector operations it defines are strictly those of a vector of bytes?

If compatibility with R6RS is so important, why is the bytevector external representation not the same?  I.e. #vu8(...) .  It seems like the R7RS bytevectors are neither here nor there.

Marc

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