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

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

> The variation between implementations on what they do to REQUIRE
> without a pathname argument is ridiculous.  As you've already noted,
> the Explorer treats REQUIRE as a hook into DEFSYSTEM.  PCLS and HPCL-I
> use a search list similar to what I originally was proposing, probably
> because PSL had something similar.  VaxLisp (at least on VMS) uses a
> logical name for the directory containing the files.  KCL looks only
> in *DEFAULT-PATHNAME-DEFAULTS*, and I think that's what Lucid does too
> (their documentation doesn't say).

Suppose we said that REQUIRE uses an implementation-defined registry of
module names and actions to be performed, if the implementation provides
such a feature, but that it does not try to guess what to do in the
absence of any kind of module definition.  I think that would permit what
I want to do, while ruling out surprising or unwanted behavior.