Re: draft of alternate proposal for EVAL-WHEN-NON-TOP-LEVEL

[sandra%defun@cs.utah.edu (Sandra J Loosemore)]

> Date: Tue, 7 Mar 89 17:18 EST
> From: David A. Moon <Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
> 
>     It makes me wonder if
>     perhaps we shouldn't retreat to a minimalist position where PROGN is
>     the only special case.
> 
> Do we really have to rehearse all the arguments as to why that won't work
> once again?

I'm not aware that such arguments have ever been coherently stated.  I
just went through all my back mail on this subject and couldn't find
anything on it from you or from anyone else.

Perhaps we need to be reminded that the minimalist position is
actually the status quo -- PROGN is the only special case mentioned by
CLtL.  COMPILER-LET got added to our list because it is also treated
as a special case by implementations derived from the MIT Lisp
Machine.  MACROLET and SYMBOL-MACROLET got added because some people
thought it would be generally useful. 

I question whether the problem with LOCALLY justifies trying to come
up with a model of what toplevelness is that is radically different
than what is specified in CLtL.  The example you cited in your
original message was putting a DEFUN form inside of a LOCALLY.  That
would still be legitimate Common Lisp regardless of whether or not the
DEFUN is considered to be at top-level, and since we do not require
DEFUN to do any compile-time evaluation, what are you losing? 

> I'm sorry I flamed so much in this message, but this is the type of response
> that makes me wonder if the whole X3J13 effort is nothing but an exercise
> in futility.

I know how you feel; I'm also getting very sick and tired of this
issue.  We've been going around in circles on it for a year now and we
don't seem any closer to any real understanding or consensus.

-Sandra
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