[no subject]

[RWK at MIT-MC (Robert W. Kerns)]

As I've often suggested before, the obvious way for things like GRINDEF and
the like to return "nothing" is for them to either return some token which
the top-level loop recognizes and doesn't print at all, or *.  It is a complete
and total screw for || to not print when you explicitly ask it to print.

How about making the top-level read-eval-print loop not print the returned
value if it is EQ to the value of TOP-LEVEL-NO-PRINT or somesuch?  This
allows people who actually might want to see || at top level (like if it
were the value of some variable) to set it to (NCONS NIL), and things
like GRINDEF should be changed to return this "magical" value.  Initially,
it would be initialized to ||, but after a time it could be changed to
be ANYTHING so long as it isn't interned.  Maybe an uninterned atom "NOPRINT"
would be a good choice.