Project description

[Steven <Handerson@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>]

We might as well start by saying what various projects are in the works.
I've heard of a Loops project going on somewhere - maybe somebody
involved in that can say how it's going.

I'm currently working with Moon to try to develop a (hopefully small)
kernel to implement Flavors in.  This might also be good for applications
that construct functions that call component operations ("combined
methods" they're called) and has the Flavor-like notion of instance
variables (i.e. those with the same name are the same).  We're currently
trying to use abstraction to come up with something neat and clean.

I will be pushing for a notion of methods that puts the defmethod in the
lexical environment (like defun) and the instance variables with the
lexical variables (allowing you to close over them).  I have a prototype
that does this using a form of symbol macros, but this could be added
specially.  Also, if instance variables are like lexical variables, then
if the instance variables of the flavor changes, the method can become
invalid [as if (let ((a 3)) a) suddenly became just a].  I will push for
a kernel that can throw out methods if it thinks it needs to (as long as
it notifies the user).  The rest is just trying to keep the kernel
clean.