Re: Iteration Status

[Alan Snyder <snyder%hplsny@hplabs.HP.COM>]

    From: shebs%utah-orion@utah-cs.ARPA (Stanley Shebs)
    Subject: Iteration Status

    Is this topic dead?  I was going through an old MAIL.TXT and observed that
    the last discussion of an iteration standard was over a year ago, and there
    was very little consensus about the form or even a need for a general
    iteration construct.

Perhaps the topic is dead.  That would be too bad.  I think Common Lisp does
need something more than DO.

    There are at least two portable iterator macros now,
    a version of MIT LOOP done by Dave Miller at DePaul and a rendition of the
    PSL FOR macro done by myself.  Neither of them is really acceptable as a
    standard, although they are fine yellow pages material.

We have a portable LOOP construct as well; it will be released shortly.  The
construct is described in a memo that was distributed a while ago.  I'm not
sure if this one is more suitable for a standard than the others.  What about
the others makes them unsuitable?

    Personally, I've drifted into using DO and sequence functions, and find them
    more convenient than trying to drag a library-type FOR module everywhere I go.
    Others at Utah seem to have a similar viewpoint.

I disagree.  The sequence functions are OK, but DO is unreadable to me.  Every
time I see one I have to decode it.  I think we can do better.

  Alan
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