Re: COPY-SYMBOL [Gall: Bug Report]

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

        !section  10.3(9)   Nick Gall 85-03-19
        !version  Digital Press 1984
        !topic    Which  bindings are copied by COPY-SYMBOL?

                    "the initial value and function-definition of the new symbol
        will be the same as those of SYM..."

                    Does this mean that the (dynamic) value of the variable
        referred to by SYM, at the point where COPY-SYMBOL symbol is
        invoked, is copied?   Or, does it mean that the `initial', i.e.
        global value of the special variable named by SYM is copied?
        Although the wording seems to suggest the latter, it should be
        made clearer.

    The word "initial" was meant to refer to the new symbol, not the old
    symbol, I believe.  Probably no one realized the English could be
    regarded as ambiguous.

        The same questions and suggestion applies to the
        function-definition copied by COPY-SYMBOL.


What confused me in the defintion of COPY-SYMBOL was the phrase,
"the initial value and function definition of the NEW SYMBOL"
[emphasis mine N.G.].  Symbols do not have values and/or function
defintions in CL (or at least they are not required to), a point
made very well on pg. 163.  The language should be more like "the
initial value of the dynamic variable NAMED BY THE new symbol..."