Re: Arrays and vectors (again)

[Daniel L. Weinreb <dlw at SCRC-TENEX at MIT-MC>]

Good try but I really don't think it works.  (typep thing '(array
string-char 1)) is just too verbose, especially for programs that use
strings in any heavy kind of way.  I have been using a Lisp with real
strings for many years now, and STRINGP is a function that gets
reasonably heavy use.

Scott, I apologize for not reading your proposal carefully enough.  It
does indeed answer all my questions.

Now that I understand what's going on, I still don't like it.  The problem
is just that the naming is too complex and inconsistent.  I think you
and I agree on this point, at least in sign if not in magnitude.

One clear problem is that the criterion for acceptability to STRING-
functions is not the same as STRINGP-, and so it's not really clear what
STRING means.  A more serious (but more debatable, I guess) problem is
just a conceptual one for me; I think of a string with a leader as being
a string, not a one-d-char-array, and that's why it prints out with
double quotes instead of #<array ...>.  I just have a feeling for what a
string is, and I'm quite certain that even a string with "hairy"
features like having an array-leader is still a string.

So (no surprise) I am in favor of the "simple-switch" proposal, with
about three exclamation points (in the November terminology).