Re: Issue: PACKAGE-CLUTTER

[masinter.pa@Xerox.COM]

I concur with the sentiment that the portability of default :USE is more
important than the slight ease of use, especially given the simple workaround
used by CLOE.

The proposal as worded says "Specify that the LISP package must contain not only
all the symbols
  mentioned as part of the LISP package in standard, but only those symbols."

I don't think you intend to disallow *internal* symbols in the LISP package,
just *external* symbols, right?


Also, it should say that the USER package should have *no* symbols, right? I.e.,
USER uses LISP, is empty, and LISP has no symbols. This gives you a way of
writing portable code that you know is portable..... (well, insofar as other
symbols are defined.)

We should be careful about the word "must". Normally, "must" is associated with
the action of user programs: a user program "must" supply an integer to this
function otherwise it "is an error". However, this proposal is a constraint on
Common Lisp implementors and not on Common Lisp programs. Perhaps we can rely on
the editor to make the transition to the correct case, but is there a simple way
of expressing it in terms of valid programs? Perhaps that is an issue for the
editorial committee.