Re: Compiler cleanup issues, again

[sandra%orion@cs.utah.edu (Sandra J Loosemore)]

> But I think that the value of in-person meeting time is overrated.

Actually, I agree.  But there hasn't been anything happening via e-mail
or over the telephone, either.

> What sort of small, well-defined proposals (that have been tabled) do
> you have in mind?

I submitted two to the cleanup committee before the November meeting.
One was an attempt to specify how top-level forms in a file (such as 
DEFMACRO or DEFSETF) affect how COMPILE-FILE compiles subsequent forms
in the file.  At that time, the cleanup committee didn't want to
consider compiler-related issues at all, although there did seem to be
an overwhelming agreement with the actual content of the proposal. 

The other proposal tried to specify how REQUIRE works in a little more
detail so that it would actually be meaningful to use in specifying
inter-file compilation dependencies.  On this one, there was a general
feeling that PROVIDE and REQUIRE were a poor substitute for a DEFSYSTEM
utility.  At the November meeting I volunteered to send a draft
DEFSYSTEM proposal around to the compiler subcommittee for review (and
in fact I have had both documentation and code sitting around for
months), but in spite of repeated promises from Steve, our mailing list
has never materialized and I don't have e-mail addresses for everybody
(where's David Bartley?).

>  Rob

-Sandra
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