Re: INTERN and "intern" -- the unwise choice of terminology

[Nick Gall <Gall@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA>]

    Date:  4 April 1985 10:42 est
    From:  Rob MacLachlan <RAM at CMU-CS-C>
    Subject:  INTERN and "intern" -- the unwise choice of terminology

        I don't think that a home-package-setting operation is well
    defined, at least without some constraints.  The system would
    certainly get confused if you set the home package to a package that
    the symbol was not accessible in, and it would be dubious to set the
    home package to a package where the symbol is not present (as opposed
    to inherited).

        If you impose these requirements, setting the home package starts
    to sound a great deal like IMPORT.  I think that the proposal to have
    IMPORT set the home package if there is none makes a great deal of
    sense.  The effect of IMPORT is really about the same as old-style
    intern on a symbol.  I don't really like the idea of INTERN having
    obscure side-effects such as setting the home package, since it is
    something that the system often does without an explicit request.

      Rob

I prefer this proposal to White's `setf with constraints' proposal.