Re: more on BOGUS-FIXNUMS

[Jeff Dalton <jeff%aiai.edinburgh.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>]

> Date: 21 Jul 88 07:59 PDT
> From: Masinter.pa@com.xerox

> 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).

It may seem perverse to say so, but I'm not sure this would be an
improvement, for it would provide an implementation with 14-bit
fixnums with what they might regard as sufficient defense: they
strictly conform to the standard.  I have similar fears about the 1024
minimum for array-dimension-limit and array-total-size limit.  I don't
usually make sure my CL programs will run in a system where arrays
can't have more than 1024 elements, and if I did want to be sure I'd
look at the actual limit, not 1024.  But I'd probably complain if the
limit really were so low, and it somehow seems easier to say an
implementation's low limit is pretty rediculous when it isn't
explicitly sanctioned by the standard.  Perhaps if the minimums
were a little bigger...

Anyway, I favor a consistent policy on limits of this sort.  If we
have them for arrays, we can (should?) have them for fixnums.