Re: more on BOGUS-FIXNUMS

[Masinter.pa@Xerox.COM]

I think the SIGNED-INTEGER stuff is a little like PROCEDURE; there seems to be
some sentiment for just patching what we have rather than introducing new names,
especially where they are close.

I like #3; there's some precedent for turning a ClTl's "typically" to a firm
requirement where it encourages portability and there doesn't seem to be any
reason to avoid it. We must be specific about the "n". I'd propose "14", i.e.,
FIXNUMs must be a supertype of (SIGNED-BYTE 14). That's small enough not to give
even today's micros heartburn, and large enough to avoid having people squawk
too much.  It is consistent with current practice, and removes some of the
potential portability requirements. 

While we're at it, let's make FIXNUM a built-in class for CLOS? If its useful
for discrimination, and implementations have 'em, then why not be able to CLOS
them too?

If you want to get rid of something, get rid of BIGNUM. It doesn't fit into the
class hierarchy as nicely, you don't want to use it for class discrimination
(since it is (AND INTEGER (NOT FIXNUM)) and might really represent several
implementation types.)