What is that -*- line for, anyway?

[David C. Plummer <DCP@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>]

    Date: Tue, 4 Mar 86 12:16:04 est
    From: Lab Manager(Brad Miller)  <lab@rochester.arpa>

    Subject: What does LOAD use for read table & package?

	Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1986  00:31 EST
	Message-Id: <FAHLMAN.12187397057.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
	Sender: FAHLMAN@C.CS.CMU.EDU
	From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
	To: "George J. Carrette" <GJC@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
	Cc: common-lisp@SU-AI.ARPA
	Subject: What does LOAD use for read table & package?
	In-Reply-To: Msg of 1 Mar 1986  08:29-EST from George J. Carrette <GJC at MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>

	    You should not be so quick to say that the "-*-" shouldnt be used. It
	    may be ugly but experience has shown that it works very well.

	....

	But all of that is irrelevant to the point I was making.  Let me try
	again: There is no mention of "-*-" comments anywhere in the current
	definition of Common Lisp.  As far as Common Lisp is concerned,
	everything in a comment is ignored.  Any code that depends for its
	correct interpretation on the "-*-" not being ignored is not portable
	Common Lisp.  Therefore, depending on this construct to set up packages
	and the like should be avoided in code that is intended to be portable.
	That's what In-Package is for.

    I concur. -*- is fine if you want frozzbozzy things for your editor so it
    need not actually 'read' lisp, but the lisp language certainly shouldn't
    define it, nor depend on it.

I don't dissent, from a literal reading of CLtL, but I'll make the
following observations.

CLtL is a language specification.  It does very little in the way of
program development tools or programming environment aids.  For those
people that have non-Lisp-understanding text editors, they will parse
neither the -*- 'attribute line' nor the possible in-package forms.  As
soon as you want your editor to be integrated into your environment
(e.g., be able to ask the question "What's the arglist of the function
the cursor is pointing at?" or "Macro expand the form after the cursor.")
you need to know various things about the 'state' of the file/buffer.
This includes things like *package*.

Hystorically, (MIT derived) Lisp Machine files have code which is in the
same package.  Therefore, the -*- attribute list and an in-package form
are equivalent, but the former is a lot easier for the editor to
understand; either it is there at a known place or it isn't.  The
compiler and loader and other >tools< where made to know about the
attribute list.  In fact, binary files contain an attribute list which
requires minimal parsing of the binary file.

It is not 'certain' that a lisp language should not define it.  If we
really specify the least common denominator, of course it won't be part
of the language, but the least common denominator isn't a powerful
language.  If we attempt to define some relatively simple standards for
useful program development aids, then I think something should be
defined.