smashed constants

[ELIOT@cs.umass.edu]

>From:	IN%"Moon@SCRC-STONY-BROOK.ARPA"  "David A. Moon" 14-JUN-1988 03:46
>To:	ELIOT@cs.umass.EDU
>Subj:	constant folding/smashing
>
>    Date: Fri, 10 Jun 88 11:32 EDT
>    From: ELIOT@cs.umass.edu
>
>	(I don't count #.(make-hash-table...) because it's so gross.)
>    
>I object to the characterization of doing something through the normal
>syntax, instead of inventing a special weird syntax that people have
>to learn as a special case, as "gross."

Yes, that was a poor choice of words.  But I don't think I am the only
one who considers "escape" constructs like #. to be a technique of last
resort.  

Still, I think my abstract point holds.  QUOTE is a very good way to
construct small and simple data structures, but there are many data
structures that cannot *reasonably* be constructed with it.
So QUOTE can't support a general mechanism for constructing read
only data. If Common Lisp is going to have a notion of read-only,
(for those implementations capable of it) then it would be best to
support a general mechanism for it.

Admittedly I don't know exactly how a general mechanism should be
defined.  A straightforward recursive decent copy won't work
on circular data structures.