This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 48 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 48 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.
I think I agree that SRFI-48 format strings (effectively borrowed from C) aren't the best fit for a lispy language. But there is a space they serve very well - When combined with the argument position qualifiers, they allow relatively easy translation of software - where you change just the format strings, and none of the rest of the code. As a variation of practice that people have had long experience with in C, I don't think they're a serious problem. If the design were abjectly broken, I/O in C would have more trouble and pain than it has. This may not be the best way to do it, but it's a useful library for portability and translatability. I don't think it would be the right thing to build directly into the runtime, because better libraries for closely related tasks can exist. But it's still a useful library.
Oh, I have to problem with `format', I use it myself quite a lot
(and if it's only for that nifty "~{ ... ~}"). What I found curious
is that we have now two "simple" format's (one final, one
draft). Why not go for the full thing?
cheers,
felix