[no subject]

[Richard M. Stallman <RMS at MIT-AI>]

I was susprised to discover that various special open keywords
implemented by LMFILE caused errors when passed to other file systems.
I had expected them to ignore keywords they did not recognize.

I still think they should ignore keywords that they don't recognize.
It is easy for a calling program to use a new feature only if it
is implemented by the file stream, but it is not easy for the program
to avoid specifying the open keyword to request the feature if
the pathname flavor does not support the keyword.

An alternative solution would be to provide a new pathname operation
:OPEN-KEYWORD-HANDLED-P, but this would require calling programs
to be more ugly.  Or there could be an open keyword saying don't
give an error for an unrecognized keyword; but then &key cannot
be used to detect the error unless &key is extended somehow.

I strongly suggest that some such solution be implemented;
otherwise, I will inevitably break your code when I make things
use new features of LMFILE and there will not be anything I can
do to avoid it.