Keyword extensions to Compile

[Jonathan A Rees <JAR@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>]

    Date: Wed, 21 May 1986  16:43 EDT
    From: Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman at C.CS.CMU.EDU>

    I guess if we want to get serious about portable code, we're going to
    have to require that implementations provide a pure Common Lisp package,
    even though this will be pretty bloody for implementations that didn't
    start off this way.  Then all we've got to argue about is whether the
    pure or extended version gets the name "LISP", and with it the default
    inclusion into other packages.  This is not a life-or-death issue with
    me, but I think that getting the extended stuff by default is the right
    way to go.

I also agree with what Kent and Gregor have said on this topic.  I'm
not sure I understand why anyone bothered inventing Common Lisp in the
first place if we weren't serious about portability.  I think this is
a very important question.  I get the impression that very few people
out there have tried moving real programs from one Common Lisp
implementation to another.  One thing that makes this situation
particularly bad is that people who are closest to the implementations
themselves, and are in a position to make life easier for those of us
trying to write portable code, are exactly those people LEAST likely
to need to transport code, so I don't believe their motivation to make
portability really work is very high.  Chances are good that they
don't even use other implementations besides their own.  I don't
perceive market demands here, either (yet), which would be another
motivation to clean this up.  So right now a small number of us just
have to suffer.

I don't think we need to go to the Ada extreme, but there is a lot
to be said for it.  The current state of affairs is quite
unsatisfactory.

Jonathan