Double standard for keywords

[DLW at MIT-AI (Daniel L. Weinreb)]

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
to what Dave said.  What is means is that the colon is DEFINED to be
necessary; we TELL you in the MANUL that it is necessary; we make
absolutely no guarantees what will happen if you leave it off.  The
contract between a system and its users is defined by the manual; the
system only guarantees to do what the manual says, and nothing else.
The manual is the contract between the user and the system.  This
is a very important concept.

I speak, of course, of the ideal case of an always-up-to-date manual
that is totally complete, but I am using the term "manual" in a
somewhat metaphoric sense; I think it is clear what I mean.