Issue: FUNCTION-DECLARATION issues

[David A. Moon <Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>]

    Date: Wed, 9 Dec 1987  10:28 EST
    From: "Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>

    2. Add an extended form for the LIST type specifier so that one can
    indicate element type and, perhaps, length.  This can be used to say
    something useful about rest-args, without having to put in ugly special
    syntax for this.

I very strongly prefer having the thing after the &rest in a function
type-specifier refer to each remaining argument, as Steele suggested two
years ago, rather than having it refer to the value of the &rest parameter,
as you seem to be assuming.  This is partly because I very strongly prefer
having the function type-specifier be a description of arguments rather
than a description of parameters.

Thus I prefer

(function + (&rest number) number)

over

(function + (&rest (list number)) number)


I really have no opinion on the other features being discussed in this
conversation, including the very existence of the list form of the
function type-specifier.  All this stuff seems both overcomplicated and
useless to me, but that's not an informed opinion.