rules of the game

[fateman%ucbdali@Berkeley (Richard Fateman)]

It seems to me that this was brought up at the Monterey meeting (by me).
That CLTL was an informal description of an approach to a Lisp dialect,
leaving a considerable amount of discretion to the implementor.  A language
consistent with CLTL could be called compatible with CL'84 (say).  When/if
there is another CL, one which has an official standard-setting description,
it could be called (say) CL '86.   There could also be some subset CL standard.

The relationship between CL'84 and CL '86 could resemble the relationships
between the various Fortrans.  Namely, they have similar names and intentions,
but are not necessarily compatible in detail.

To imply that CL is static will encourage people to design and promulgate
the YADOCL family of languages (Yet Another Derivative of Common Lisp).

Now if CL'84 stands in the same relation to Lisps of the next 20 years as
Lisp 1.5 stood to Lisps of the previous 20 years, this may also be OK.
It doesn't solve DARPA's problems of complete compatibility and portability
of code, but neither, after all, did CL '84.

I think it would be a mistake to be stubborn about changes.

P.S. the location of the branch cut for the complex atan is not likely to
affect any existing CL code, and I think that the IEEE or APL standards
committee might be followed without injury.