Re: Issue: PACKAGE-CLUTTER (Version 4)

[masinter.pa@Xerox.COM]

Are system-internal (non-LISP package) properties "visible"? 
I.e., if we are going to allow the system to put its own
system-dependent properties on any symbol (USER,
LISP or wherever), can those properties be added at
any time?


The following example was sent to me by Bob Boyer:

Date: Wed, 23 Nov 88 15:50:16 CST
 From: Robert S. Boyer <boyer@CLI.COM>


...

Here's a little point.  When one executes "symbol-name" in KCL, a side
effect to the property list of the symbol takes place.  This sort of
clobbering of the property lists has been around since the earliest
days of Lisp.  Interlisp and Symbolics have done this sort of thing
willy-nilly.  But is it legal for a supposedly side-effect free Common
Lisp function to touch property lists?

Example:

KCl (Kyoto Common Lisp)  June 3, 1987

>(symbol-plist 'foo)
NIL

>(symbol-name 'foo)
"FOO"

>(symbol-plist 'foo)
(SYSTEM:PNAME "FOO")

>