Re: Issue: REQUIRE-PATHNAME-DEFAULTS (Version 3)

[David N Gray <Gray@DSG.csc.ti.com>]

> I think it's reasonable for MAKE-SYSTEM (or LOAD-SYSTEM, or whatever)
> to implicitly or explicitly do a PROVIDE, since MAKE-SYSTEM is not
> part of standard Common Lisp.

I thought that was the intent of the phrase "permit environment-specific
extensions", but evidently it needs to be clarified.

>    I'm more concerned about forbidding
> things that -are- part of the standard language (like LOAD) from
> having side effects that make REQUIRE behave differently in different
> implementations.

Agreed.

> Also, I don't think that making REQUIRE automatically do a MAKE-SYSTEM
> is in the spirit of this proposal, which is intended to make REQUIRE
> strictly declarative and never cause anything to be loaded without
> user intervention.

Right; that's what is bothering me.  This proposal really does two things:

 1. It eliminates the second argument of REQUIRE.
 2. It changes the meaning of calling REQUIRE with one argument from what
    CLtL says at the bottom of page 188.

I agree with the first change.  I do not agree with the second change, and
there is nothing in the "rationale" to justify it.  All of the discussion
has been addressing the first change only.  Where did this second change
come from?