Issue: PATHNAME-SUBDIRECTORY-LIST (Version 4)

[Jim McDonald <jlm@lucid.com>]

I'm also disturbed by the proposed restrictions on the elements of a
pathname-directory list.  Why, for example, is it necessary to
preclude a feature that allows variables to appear?  E.g., the
following seems like a plausibly useful pair of pathnames:

  (:ABSOLUTE *top-of-source-tree*      "a" "b" "c") 
  (:ABSOLUTE *top-of-destination-tree* "a" "b" "c") 

or even:

  (:ABSOLUTE *top-of-source-tree*      . *relative-dir-path*)
  (:ABSOLUTE *top-of-destination-tree* . *relative-dir-path*)

[There's probably better syntax than a dotted pair, but you know what
 I mean.]

I'm not saying I need or even want this particular feature, but I'm
pretty sure I don't want to have it prohibited just because it hadn't
occurred to anyone yet.

[Btw, I think Alarson's example for home dir could be accomomdated as 
 (... :HOME "alarson" ...) in the spirit of the proposal.  Most
 plausible structures could probably be handled similarly, but perhaps
 clumsily.]

   jlm