Formal comment #150 (simplification)

The library form should prefix rather than enclose libraries
Reported by: 	John Cowan
Version:	5.92

Currently a library is represented by a single datum (a library form),
whereas a top-level program is represented by a sequence of forms. The
latter is more convenient for both generation and processing, and I
urge that it be adopted for libraries also.

This can be achieved by moving the export, import, and library-body
parts of the library out of the library form (typically this amounts
to moving a single close paren), and copying the language of report
section 7.1 about "a delimited piece of text" into report section 6.1.


RESPONSE:

It's not clear that a sequence of forms is more convenient than a
single form for processing and generation. Both syntactic choices have
technical merits and drawbacks. The editors find the merits of
parentheses slightly more compelling.

A difference between top-level programs and a libraries is that a
program contains only one top-level program but multiple libraries.
As a result, we believe that delimiting the text for a library body is
a common enough need (in streams of various kinds) that it is worth
standardizing the delimiters; parentheses are the obvious choice.