#H syntax

[Dave.Touretzky@C.CS.CMU.EDU]

>  From: Pavel.pa@Xerox.COM
>  Would the input
>		#H(EQUAL (FOO 7) (BAR 8))
>  be equivalent to the input
>                #H(EQUAL (FOO . (7)) (BAR . (8)))
>  or simply illegal?  If the former, I'm left a bit queasy, I think, but I'm
>  not sure why.  If the latter, then why use dot notation?

I wanted the syntax of hash table elements in #H to mirror the syntax
of a-lists, since hash tables and a-lists are semantically similar
and provide similar functionality in Common Lisp.  So my proposal is for
the former alternative, i.e., (FOO 7) would be treated as (FOO . (7)).

I understand Pavel's queasiness on this point.  For a while I considered
using list syntax instead of dotted pair syntax, because the dots look
kind of messy and require two extra characters per table entry.

I'm happy to leave the exact choice of syntax up to the cleanup committee.  If
no one else has objections or suggestions, I will submit a proposal to the
cleanup committee using the dot notation and mention the list notation version
as a possible alternative.

-- Dave
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