Issue: EQUAL-STRUCTURE (Version 4)

[David A. Moon <Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>]

    Date: Sat, 1 Oct 88 18:46 EDT
    From: Kent M Pitman <KMP@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>

    Can we not say "CLOS instances" and just use "instances"?  The single
    word is not ambiguous now that CLOS is adopted.  I don't want users of a
    Flavors compatibility package to get worried that "CLOS instances" and
    "Flavors instances" might be different. I'd rather the paragraph on
    EQUALP read:

     EQUALP is similar, except that it ignores case in strings,
     descends arrays, structures, and instances. It uses EQ for
     all other types; for example, it does not descend hash tables.

The problem with this is that there is no such concept as "an instance"
in CLOS.  The word "instance" is only used in the phrase "an instance
of a class".  Every, every object is an instance of some class.  In
CLOS terms, where you said "instances" I think you meant "members
of STANDARD-OBJECT" or "instances of STANDARD-OBJECT or of a subclass
of that class" (the latter two phrases are synonymous).  Also of course
as I think JonL pointed out what this says is not what EQUALP does,
at least remember that it uses = for numbers.