Argument lists: a proposal to shoot at

[David C. Plummer <DCP@QUABBIN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>]

    Date: Thu, 26 Jun 86 12:34 EDT
    From: Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>

    In the following function descriptions, assume that the argument
    function has Q required parameters and P &optional parameters, and that
    R, K, or A is true iff the function has respectively a &rest, &key, or
    &allow-other-keys lambda-keyword.

	...

    Point of design philosophy: &aux "parameters" aren't anybody's business
    at this level of abstraction.  I don't deny that for the sake of
    debuggers this information, and such other information as the names of
    parameters, may be desired.

Other ideas for consideration:

I think the max number of parameters before the &rest is useful.

Why not one function that returns just about everything as multiple
values?  Something like
	(values min-required-args
		max-spead-args
		takes-rest-arg-p
		takes-keywords-p
		allows-other-keywords-p)

Consider a system that allows the programmer to override the argument
list with a declaration, such as
	(defun foo (a b &rest c)
	  (declare (arglist symbol indicator &key package value &allow-other-keys))
	  ...)
Do these functions return what the function really wants or what the
user says it wants?

Consider the case
	(defun make-raster-array (width height &rest make-array-keywords
				  &key &allow-other-keys)
	  (apply #'make-array (list height width make-array-keywords)))
Here, there are keywords accepted, but it isn't really clear which ones,
since this is an abstraction on top of make-array.  [I don't have a good
answer to this one.]