[no subject]

[CWH@MIT-MC]

CC: (BUG LISPM) at MIT-MC, (BUG MACSYMA) at MIT-MC

    Moon@MIT-AI 08/12/79 12:43:36
    Macsyma should not be loaded with INHIBIT-FDEFINE-WARNINGS ...

As JPG pointed out, the problem is not in function/function conflicts, but
macro/macro and macro/function conflicts.  On the Lisp Machine, the 
macro files are loaded when a Macsyma is created to enable incremental
compilation.

There are several solutions to this problem:
	
1) Create a compiler option similar to INHIBIT-FDEFINE-WARNINGS which
permits intra-package conflicts, but not inter-package ones.

2) Have each file load its own macros at compile time, and have them exist
only for the duration of the compilation of that particular file, as is
currently done with COMPLR.  This will result in much needless reloading of
macro files when the entire system is being compiled, however.  It also
makes incremental development more difficult.

3) Create a separate package for each compile-time environment.  This is a
can of worms, and I have no interest in doing this.

4) Eliminate conflicts between "global" macro packages.  Any macro which is
used frequently enough to be in its own file should be standardized and made
available to all Macsyma programmers.  This would have the beneficial side
effect of making our code less confusing.  I am currently working on doing
this.  See LIBMAX;PRELUD > for more details.