Put Up or Shut Up

I think a user has to put a multiplicity of rules in his mind when he
reads that FUNCALL calls the function..., when it really invokes the
function or coerces a symbol or a list with a LAMBDA CAR (though that
might fail) to a function and calls that. But a user has fewer rules in
mind when he knows that FUNCALL invokes the function and that there is a
standard way to coerce (COERCE).

What I mean by ``put up or shut up'' is very innocent: This is an issue in
which we either choose to make a true cleanup for aesthetic and political
reasons or we choose not to. If we choose the former, I feel we have
ammunition to use to gain a compromise with EuLisp and Scheme - this would
be fine with me. If we choose the latter, I feel we have to keep Common
Lisp away from being a Lisp (unmodified name) standard, and we must make
sure that ISO Lisp is really ISO EuLisp or some such - this would be fine
with me. Y'all get to put up or shut up, and I get to observe the outcome
and begin to act accordingly, assuming someone wishes me to act at all.

 From my own standpoint, I prefer the cleaner formulation, but I am
perfectly happy with the one currently stated in the FUNCTION-TYPE
writeup; if either makes it to the floor of X3J13, I will vote for it.

I am happy to treat the important, undisputed part of the FUNCTION-TYPE
proposal as separate from the only-aesthetic, disputed part of the proposal.

			-rpg-