[no subject]

[Robert W. Kerns <RWK at MIT-MC>]

    Date: 27 November 1979 05:54-EST
    From: Jeffrey P. Golden <JPG at MIT-MC>
    To:   BUG-LISP

    RWK says he would rather screw people who are already using LISP in the 
    default way than screw people who want to use a new feature.  
    It seems to me that this attitude is preposterous.  People who are 
    waiting anyway can more easily be asked to wait some more than 
    can people who will be screwed by this change to MACLISP, especially 
    here where the transition can be made less painful so easily by first 
    changing the default for TERPRI to T (which I have already done in 
    the current MACSYMA) and waiting some on the CR change.

I would dispute your use of the word "default".  You mean "old".  The rest of
the world has passed us by.  Consider TWENEX, TENEX, TOPS-10, SAIL, CMU, and
Multics versions of MacLisp all have long (or always) had this mode.  So does
the LISP machine.  NIL, INTERLISP, every damned one except ITS.  I would rather
force 1 user to change the 1 program significantly affected (MACSYMA) than
force all the rest of the world to mark time.  There really aren't that many
programs which depend on CR being invisible in old files with atoms longer
than LINEL!  Not many print atoms longer than LINEL!