Re: Issue: FUNCTION-COERCE-TIME (Version 1)

[Kent M Pitman <KMP@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>]

    Date: 22 Jun 88 22:46 PDT
    From: masinter.pa@Xerox.COM

    This is the right idea, but "at late as possible" is probably too vague to
    satisfy folks.

Sigh. You're probably right.

    I think the idea is that supplying x as a functional argument to  remove-if,
    mapc, etc.  should work identically to supplying #'(lambda (&rest arguments)
    (apply (if (functionp x) x (symbol-function x)) arguments))

Since I plan to submit a cleanup item to re-allow LAMBDA expressions as coerceable
to functions, i would appreciate it if we could avoid any wording that got us
caught up in irrelevant presuppositions about what was a function or what wasn't.
For example,
 #'(lambda (&rest arguments) (apply (coerce x 'function) arguments))
would both make your local intent clearer and make this proposal more modular.

I'll take care of ammending it in a few days after I make sure there are no other
comments.