Re: intern

[NGALL@G.BBN.COM]

    Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1986  20:54 EST
    From: Rob MacLachlan <RAM@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
    To:   "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
    Subject: intern
    In-Reply-To: Msg of 16 Feb 1986  20:12-EST from Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman>
    Message-ID: <RAM.12183949643.BABYL@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
    
    
	I believe that it was decided that the correct interpretation of
    the manual did not support INTERN setting the package cell.
    Contradictory passages were considered to be dated, and inconsistent
    with the current notion of package semantics.  
    
    It was thought that having INTERN do anything to package cells was
    a rather random side-effect, and was better left out since no very
    convincing arguments were presented in its favor.
    
    It was pointed out that IMPORT is a function which causes a symbol to
    be present in a package.  This seems to correspond fairly well to the
    notion of intering a symbol.  It was decided that having IMPORT home
    the symbol made some sense, so the change to IMPORT was put in.
    
    There is a point against INTERN setting the home package which I
    believe was not discussed.  It is not obvious what package INTERN
    should choose at the home.  It is a bad idea to set the package
    to the one being interned in, since the symbol may not be present in
    that package; it may be inherited.  If the symbol was subsequently
    unexported, it would have a home package yet not be available in that
    package.  This could be fixed up by choosing some package which the
    symbol is present in, but the choice would have to be fairly
    arbitrary, since the symbol might be inherited from more than one
    package.
    
      Rob
    
	      --------------------
		
This is pretty much how I remember the discussion.

	-- Nick