Intern

[David A. Moon <Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA>]

    Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1985  23:42 EST
    From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>

    OK, I'd like to end this Intern nonsense before my mailbox overflows.
    Could everyone live with the following:

    1. Intern never messes with the Symbol-Package cell.

    2. Import fills in the symbol's Symbol-Package cell with the importing
    package if that cell is NIL.

    3. In the next edition of the manual we fix up the description of
    symbols being "interned in a package" either by flushing this whole
    concept or by finding a more precise term for it.

    If we do all of that, I don't think it is redundant to add a Setf for
    Symbol-Package (with a check that the symbol is accessible in its home
    package), but I wouldn't fight to the death if people wanted to include
    this mechanism as well.  I would fight an attempt to add a non-checking
    Setf of Symbol-Package.

This is fine with me.

Hey, I don't even have to make any changes in my implementation to conform
to this clarified specification!