Issue: FLOAT-UNDERFLOW (version 2)

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

    Date: Thu, 25 May 89 12:57:13 PDT
    From: Jon L White <jonl@lucid.com>
    ....
    What makes me a bit leary of this proposal, at this stage of the game,
    is that I thought we had agreed to close down Cleanup for new proposals,
    in order to concentrate our efforts of finishing the large amount of
    work already started but not completed.

Agreed.  Let me explain my purpose in bringing up now these new issues
like FLOAT-UNDERFLOW (the pathnames ones are not new, although one of
them had not been written up before).  I want to get a decision on whether
these things are going to be in or out of ANSI Common Lisp.  If they are
out, I am not going to have a tantrum, it just means my efforts should be
redirected towards a de facto standard rather than a de jure standard.
Of course if ANSI Common Lisp doesn't address these issues, that will make
it a worse language than it would be otherwise, but we already know that
ANSI Common Lisp is not going to be a perfect language, and we assume we
all had accepted that in our hearts quite a long time ago or we wouldn't
still be working on it.

The CL-Cleanup committee could make a decision never to show these issues
to X3J13 and I wouldn't have a tantrum over that either.  You're saying
that FLOAT-UNDERFLOW is best not brought up at this time, and I think that
is a reasonable position to take (although I don't know whether I myself
agree with it, since I haven't read your sketch of a proposal yet).

There are a number of other issues that I decided on my own not to bring
up with CL-Cleanup at all, since they are clearly inappropriate to
propose at this late date for the current de jure standard, even though
they are clearly issues that a language with the goals of ANSI Common
Lisp ought to address.  I'd rather not distract you by listing those
issues right now.

Comments on the specifics of your proposal later.