[no subject]

CC: (BUG LISPM) at MIT-MC
    Date: Thu ,7 Feb 80 07:12:00 EDT
    From: DLW at MIT-AI (Daniel L. Weinreb)
    Subject: Double standard for keywords
    To: JONL at MIT-MC
    CC: (BUG LISPM) at MIT-AI
    Jonl, when Dave said the colon is necessary, you misunderstood him. To
    say that the colon is necessary does NOT mean that leaving it off is
    *guaranteed* to fail.  Just because it might woak is no contradication
    . . . 
Well, foo, how deep can this get!  I'm not trying to make any technical 
contradiction, but merely point out that the propogated standard hasn't in 
fact taken hold, and that's made life much harder for us poor blokes who're
trying to share compatible system-software.   There has been a lot of 
discussion around the lab here recently about whether or not to switch to a 
keyword package - I don't know if you've been aware of all the arguing going 
on - but Moon's comment shows him to be strongly on one side of the issue, 
and I'm on that same side too.  Yet, it still hasn't happend that the issue 
is settled, and it won't be until the other side acquiseces and the whole 
group (as MMcM so succinctly put it) "bites the bullet" and loads up again.
   Incidentally, in some of my mail last week, I may have misrepresented 
RMS's position  -  I talked about "his idea of making the keyword
package a superior of the USER package".  Unless he's changed his mind,
he's not in favor of this one, due to potential "shadowing" problems.