Re: Issue: DEFINITION-FUNCTIONS

[Masinter.pa@Xerox.COM]

>Just going over some old mail and found this.  I'd like to see a lot
>more motivation for all this machinery.  Does this really solve some
>useful problem, or is it extensibility for its own sake?

>-- Scott

Well, I can say that I use (a version of) this machinery frequently in
the Xerox Lisp environment, but I'm not sure it isn't because it also
interacts nicely with the residential environment.


One reason for mailing this proposal out was to allay suspicion that the
trace proposal and this one might interact.

>From: David A. Moon <Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
>Date: Thu, 6 Aug 87 14:10 EDT
>cc: common-lisp-object-system@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU, Masinter.pa

. . . .

>The Cleanup subcommittee of X3J13 were discussing something similar
>a while back, starting from a different point.  The DOCUMENTATION
function
>of Common Lisp introduces the concept of "definition types", and this
>concept could be useful in other operations.  For instance, it would be
>nice to be able to remove any definition (function, variable, type,
setf)
>through a uniform interface.  "Definition type" and "function spec
type"
>are not the same concept, however there seems to be enough overlap here
>that some coordination is probably called for.

>I don't remember for sure, but I think Larry Masinter volunteered to
make
>a proposal for "definition types" when he got time.