CLOS defining macros & compilation

[Gregor.pa@Xerox.COM]

    Date: Thu, 23 Feb 89 14:13:57 MST
    From: sandra%defun@cs.utah.edu (Sandra J Loosemore)

    I believe that there are enough serious problems with the compilation
    semantics presented in the meta-object protocol document distributed
    before the January meeting that it would be a mistake to try to
    standardize that behavior.  It does not appear that any alternate
    proposal is forthcoming from the CLOS committee in time for us to make
    the March 15th deadline (that's less than 3 weeks away, folks).

No one believes that what is written in draft 10 of the MOP is valid.  I
am certainly sorry if that wasn't communicated to you clearly.

A couple of weeks ago I sent a summary analysis to a small group of
people familiar with this problem.  My message outlines three courses of
action to take.  Among these is a proposal which, while it is minimal in
certain metaobject programming respects, does not restrict ordinary
programming.

My belief is that resolution of this issue cannot proceed until the
EVAL-WHEN issue has been resolved.  I have been waiting to see what the
resolution would be on the Symbolics EVAL-WHEN proposal.  I haven't said
anything about it before, but that proposal looks right to me.  I
believe it has what it would take to implement any of the CLOS behaviors
I outlined to the CLOS group.  I don't understand how to provide
reasonable CLOS semantics with the previous propsal.

Once the status of EVAL-WHEN is clear, and I get some more feedback
about the message I sent, I will be able to rewrite the relevant part of
Chapter 3.  That rewrite will cover more than what we want to put in the
standard just now, but it will make it clear exactly what the behavior
should be.  It will give us a precise model with which to decide exactly
what how much to put in the standard.  Then it should be easy to reduce
it to what the compiler committee report should say.
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