[no subject]

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

The problem with the STRING-TRIM always doing copying is *not* one
of convenience, it is one of missing functionality. If STRING-TRIM
did not always copy then one can write a STRING-TRIM which did always copy.
But with "always-copy" being primitive one cannot write the function
which KMP wants. So unless one can prove that KMP's functionality has
no reasonable application, there is an obvious flaw in the present
choice of string primitive semantics. [The present "always-copy" rule,
although simple, has an implicit bias towards programming with side effects.]

-gjc