So I'm still working with [DELETED-Lisp-DELETED] [DELETED-Scheme-DELETED] guile [1], and I'm still questioning [2] if [DELETED-Lisp-DELETED] [DELETED-Scheme-DELETED] guile is a HLL (High Level Language) or a HHL (High Level Language)-wannabe.
I'm at a point where using a structure would be the best thing to use. A structure is nothing more than a collection of data (possibly of different types) that can be treated as a unit. In C, a typical structure definition would be (example from my own code):
>
```
/* data associated with a web-request */
struct http
{
URLHTTP url;
List headers;
Stream io[2];
int version;
int status;
};
```
Pretty straight forward.
I check the the documentation [3] and yes, it supports structures [4].
Cool!
So, here's how you define a “simple” structure with only two elements:
>
```
(define ball-root (make-vtable-vtable "pr" 0))
(define (make-ball-type ball-color)
(make-struct ball-root 0
(make-struct-layout "pw")
(lambda (ball port)
(format port "#<a ~A ball owned by ~A>"
(color ball)
(owner ball)))
ball-color))
(color ball) (struct-ref (struct-vtable ball) vtable-offset-user))
(owner ball) (struct-ref ball 0))
```
What? Did [DELETED-Lisp-DELETED] [DELETED-Scheme-DELETED] guile take lessons from Forth? I have to manually construct the structures? This is a HLL? And not only do I have to write code to create structures, but I also have to write code to populate them. Anyone remember BASIC (Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code)?
>
```
10 DIM A(20):FOR I=1 TO 20:READ A(I):NEXT I
20 DATA 3,4,23,88,2,3,4,9,10,12,44,87,8,7,6,13,33,8,29,0
```
(Which, incidentally, is another pet-peeve of scripting languages—the inability to have pre-initialized data at run time [5].)
I suppose I could always write code to make structures easier, but why should I have to abstraction to what is arguably the highest level programming language in existance? (although structures might be easier to use in Common Lisp, I don't have a Common Lisp environment to test it) Have structures fallen out of vogue in HLLs? Did I fail to get the memo?
[1] http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/
[3] http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/docs/docs-1.8/guile-ref/
[4] http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/docs/docs-1.8/guile-ref/Structures.html#Structures