[SAFIER%cgi.csnet: proposed modification to common lisp]

[Skef Wholey <Skef@think.com>]

    From: Scott <SAFIER%cgi.csnet at RELAY.CS.NET>
    Re:   proposed modification to common lisp

    Proposal: the following functions be modified to include a parameter which
	      specifies a package:
    read, read-delimited-list, read-preserving-white-space

    This additional parameter could either be a keyword argument, or an optional
    argument.  If the package is not specified, the current package (*package*)
    will be used as the default.

    [...] Also, it is
    burdensome for the common lisp programmar to create a local lexical
    environment around input functions, simply to insure that any symbols created
    during input are interned in the proper package.  A package argument for these
    input functions removes this burden.
    [...]

Three reactions:
     1. These functions already have a just-barely managable number of
        optional parameters, and adding another would push them over the
        edge.
     2. Converting them to use all keyword args might have been a good
        idea three or four years ago, but isn't feasible now.
     3. This functionality can be easily implemented at user level, with
        a few macros.
By the way, Read-From-String probably belongs in the list above.  It
already takes both optional and keyword arguments, so extending it along
with the others complicates (or simplifies, depending on how you look at
it) the situation a bit. 

But how about this: introduce a new function, Parse, which is to Read as
Write is to Print -- a big fancy general-purpose I/O function that takes
all imaginable keyword arguments and Does The Right Thing.  Whether or
not it would preserve whitespace would be one argument.  We could either
leave Read-Delimited-List out of this, or add Parse-Delimited-List as
well.

--Skef