File property lists

[Edward Barton <EB at MIT-AI>]

It would be nice if they were general, as I mentioned.  For example,
IBASE is not the only per-file reader parameter one can imagine; macro
characters of any desired complexity are also of exactly the same
flavor.  Of course since Maclisp doesn't have a RESETFORM or other
mechanism for undoing arbitrary things (not known when the scope is
entered) when the scope is exited, generality seems impossible.
(Of course, for all I know the capability does exist and ungeneral
crocks can after all be avoided.)

The capability of making changes temporarily also applies to compilation,
of course, and to prettyprinting, and to loading a compiled file.
Interlisp users who have had the patience to wade through the
manual and discover the way of associating things with exactly the right
doing and undoing times know.  Of course there are always hack ways
of accomplishing such things in small systems; they become important
when dealing with large, organized,
possibly multi-authored systems.