functions that return nonstandard extra values

[Guy Steele <gls@THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA>]

    Date: Mon, 4 Nov 85 22:35 EST
    From: Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>

	Date: Mon,  4 Nov 85 22:00:48 EST
	From: "George J. Carrette" <GJC@MIT-MC.ARPA>

		   If a user was really interested in efficiency he wouldnt
	use the hairy system-provided hash table implementations anyway.

    This is completely the opposite of our point of view, which is that it
    is the job of the system to provide usable and efficient tools.

My feeling exactly.  If implementations are such that users find it
desirable to ignore most of the built-in functions and roll their own,
then we have failed:  we might as well have used a smaller dialect, such
as SCHEME or PSL.  Common Lisp took the direction it did precisely
because we thought that all the built-in functions would be useful to
users.

--Guy