function-type-rest-list-element

[Jon L White <edsel!jonl@labrea.Stanford.EDU>]

re: Here's an interesting thought experiment that might shed some light on
    what the FUNCTION declaration, and the &REST type specifier nested
    within in, might be for.  Suppose you had an implementation ... [with]
    lambda-list keyword &REST2, which is just like &REST except that the
    value to which the parameter variable is bound is a stack-allocated
    object of some implementation-dependent type, and the only legal
    operations on it are LENGTH2, NTH2, DOLIST2, and APPLY2 (all just like
    the standard functions with similar names except that they take one
    of these funny objects as an argument where the standard functions
    take a list).

    The caller of a function doesn't need to know or care whether the
    function accepts its arguments with &REST or with &REST2.  

This "gedanken experiment" isn't hypothetical at all.  VAX/NIL, one of
the predecessors of Common Lisp, actually had &RESTV and &RESTL in 
addition to &REST.   &RESTV guaranteed a stack-allocated VECTOR and,
&RESTL guaranteed a heap-allocated list.  &REST was left ambiguous just 
so that the user couldn't know which of the two kinds of structures
was being worked upon, and thus couldn't depend upon any accidental
properties.

But at "flag day", few other CL participants saw any value to cluttering
up &rest *lists*.


-- JonL --