SELECTQ

[George J. Carrette <GJC at MIT-MC>]

Since you have chosen to enlarge this disscusion to include
Macsyma-I, I might as well lay it on the line.

Your big problem JONL is a cavalier attitude that you
can do as you please, releasing untested and inferior software
upon maclisp users. Let us look carefully at your latest complaint:

"By the bye, GSB was actively hacking the SELECTQ macro of LSB,
and it had none of the faults or inefficiencies that GJC alleges.
He merely looked at the results of an intermediate version."

On the contrary, I was looking at the results of a version that
was *installed* system code. You installed it. To say that it
was "intermediate" is admission of guilt.

The reason I took the time to write a SELECTQ macro
and install it into maclisp was so that reasonable software
would be available to (amoung other systems) macsyma.

The reason you had for deinstalling my version, installing
what you knew to be inferior software, and leaving it
in that "intermediate" state for four days, is something only you know.
That fact that you were later able to get a more winning version
from GSB does not support redemption. [Seriously folks, name any
feature in maclisp, and you can get a more winning version from GSB.
Its what comes from thoughtfull consideration of the issues without
the rush to install new hacks.]

-gjc