Re: Issue: LOAD-OBJECTS (Version 1)

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

    Date: Fri, 6 Jan 89  11:53:32 CST
    From: David N Gray <Gray@DSG.csc.ti.com>

    > Defstruct needs a :LOAD-FUNCTION (or whatever) option, and a rule for how
    > you get the simple slot-recreation function. 

    Rather than adding more options to DEFSTRUCT, I'm more inclined to think
    that the :PRINT-FUNCTION option is obsolete now that you can do
      (DEFMETHOD PRINT-OBJECT ...)

I agree.  The old way using DEFSTRUCT options is so irregular and kludgy.

    >   I still think that it's going to
    > be awkward and confusing for this to default differently from :PRINT-FUNCTION
    > or :CONSTRUCTOR (both of which give you a default function if not specified),

    Maybe; on the Explorer, structures are already dumpable by treating them
    like arrays, and I haven't noticed any problems caused by this.

Since that's true in Symbolics Genera also, by reasoning from current practice
I could easily be convinced that the default method for STRUCTURE-OBJECT should
just save the structure name and slot values, rather than signalling an error.
That's fine for compatibility.  What I really care about is that the default
method for STANDARD-OBJECT must signal an error.