Re: Issue: STREAM-INFO (Version 4)

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

We'll see if we can add enough description of a cursor to make
the proposal more clear.

It's good to have the hard issues listed out, and they should probably be
in the discussion section, but since you're permitted to return NIL on any
case you think is too hard, I hope the proposal doesn't get stalled on that.

The important point here is that many implementations -do- have a theory
of where the cursor is in some or all of those situations, and if the
implementation has a theory, Dick just wants to be able to access that info.
The idea isn't to make more work for implementors -- only to make a common
interface to this facility where it does exist. As it is, you have to
use a lot of #+ and #- stuff to deal with this -- and every time a new
implementation comes along, it has to decide which existing implementation
to use as a pattern or whether to make up its own protocol.