Re: CLX draft 3 revisions

[Daniel L. Weinreb <DLW@ALDERAAN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>]

    Date: Thu 14 May 87 10:21:55-PDT
    From: Dan Carnese <CARNESE@SPAR-20.ARPA>

    A basic problem with function names that include class names, such as
    font-height, is that it is bad for extensibility.  When subclasses of the
    existing class are defined, e.g., adobe-font, users of those subclasses
    will have to remember which ancestor class must be used to construct the
    name of the function.  This makes such systems more difficult to learn and
    increases the incidence of trivial but annoying programming errors.

Right.  This is exactly why CLOS does not use the class name as the
accessor prefix.  Instead, the writer of the defclass has to specify the
prefix, and the intention is that the prefix be specified according to
the protocol that the class implements, rather than the name of the
class.