Re: Namestring&pathstring returning shared structure

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

    Date: Sunday, June 22, 1986  14:30:31
    From: Alan Snyder <snyder%hplsny@hplabs.HP.COM>

    CLU solved this problem by making STRING a different type than ARRAY of
    CHARACTER, and by making STRINGs immutable.  We found having immutable STRINGs
    to be extremely useful: one can pass a string to a procedure or return it from
    a procedure without worrying that someone might destructively modify it!  This
    idea was such a win that a later revision of CLU had both immutable and
    mutable arrays and immutable and mutable records.

It must be a bitch to write an editor in CLU, or do you just implement
lines as arrays of characters instead of as strings, thereby losing the
textual benefit of debugging and having to write separate output
routines to display these "strings"?

    Something to think about for Common Lisp 2000...