DEFSTRUCT options syntax

[MOON at SCRC-TENEX]

    Date: Friday, 1 October 1982  08:48-EDT
    From: Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c>

    ....
    my point is just that OPEN is pretty much like the others.
Except that it is a function.

    I'm uneasy about making special forms too special, and creating forms
    that the user cannot duplicate with macros or some such.  
No one proposes to make forms that the user cannot duplicate with macros.
Indeed, I can think of no possible way to do that.

							      Perhaps we can
    extend the basic keyword mechanism to allow keyword/value, but also
    allow calling forms like (foo :key1 value1 (:key2 value2a value2b) ...)
    However, coming up with an attractive way to specify this in a macro's
    lambda-list will be pretty tough.
I assume you don't mean doing this for functions.  That would be utterly wrong.

We could easily add another & word to DEFMACRO if we decide it is desirable
to have an even more trivial way to accept such syntax in macros than the
straightforward way of looping over the form checking LISTP and CAR.