[no subject]

[primerd!DOUG@ENX.Prime.PDN]

I think that people forget the purpose of standards organizations.  It is
almost never the purpose of such organizations to change existing practice.
The proposed charter of X3J13 (which will hopefully standardize Common LISP)
by Steele says explicitly that the primary purpose is to codify existing 
practice.  And don't forget that a major purpose of Common LISP was to 
provide a !!stable!! base for development for software designers.

Although the issue of one namespace vs. two has gotten alot of discussion
(which it deserves),  it would seem impossible at this time to change the
existing language.  Many problems need to be solved before a one namespace
LISP with macros is acceptable and a standard is the wrong place for this.
The right place is in academia where such instability and experimentation
is both acceptable and expected.

Barry Margolin's suggestion of &functional is an attempt to extend the 
language to answer the people who object to the two namespaces on the
grounds that it inhibits functional programming.  It seems to do this
fairly well.  One can also do this today with explicit flet/labels.

Douglas Rand
PRIME Computer 
dougr@eddie.mit.edu