args to error, cerror, & warn

[David A. Moon <Moon%SCRC-TENEX%MIT-MC@SU-DSN>]

    Date: 16 May 1983 19:46 EDT
    From: Glenn S. Burke <GSB @ MIT-ML>
    Subject: args to error, cerror, & warn

    I think we should require a first argument of NIL there now for
    a place-holder since we are not going to define the extension yet.
    Optional first arguments are a pain for both implementation and
    documentation.

I don't think it would be a good idea to require that NIL be written
when the first argument is omitted, since all naive users will be
omitting the first argument.  The implementation pain is negligible
since there is no reason for these functions to be fast (anyway, they
call FORMAT!).  The documentation pain is real, but I think it is
outweighed by the convenience of having conditions be invisible to naive
users.

If the concensus of the committee is that we can't have optional first
arguments, then I will insist that the future extension to conditions be
made by introducing three new functions so that the basic functions don't
have to be called with an extraneous argument.