Issue: PACKAGE-CLUTTER (Version 2)

[gz@spt.entity.com (Gail Zacharias)]

   Date: Wed, 28 Sep 88 12:12 EDT
   From: Kent M Pitman <KMP@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
   I wasn't really thinking about this issue, but I'd be happy if you
   couldn't have global definitions of LIST, MEMBER, etc. or SPECIAL
   bindings of them. But it's ok with me if you have lexical bindings of them.
   Would that satisfy you. Does that seem to inconsistent to anyone?

Yes.  I sometimes find it useful to put temporary special declarations on
normally-lexical variables as a q&d debugging technique.  I don't see why I
shouldn't be allowed to do this for a variable named LIST.  I also don't see
why I shouldn't be allowed to have a macro named MOST-POSITIVE-FIXNUM.  In
fact I don't really understand the motivation for putting ANY restrictions on
USERS wrt this issue.  It seems to be mainly a matter of style or good
programming practice but then so is putting *'s around specials, and the
standard isn't going to require that.  If a programmer doesn't choose to be
concerned about co-existing with other programs in the same lisp, that's his
business.  He might even know what he's doing. Implementations might want to
issue warnings in such cases, but that's not the same as making such programs
arbitrarily illegal.