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Re: Defgeneric affects methods?



    ``Except it does affect existing methods if :method is
    specified, so....''

    Here is an issue brought up by wording problems: do you mean
    that defgeneric affects the set of existing methods (such as
    replacing some of them) or that defgeneric affects some individuals
    because when one is ``replaced'' a method is destructively modified?

I think that this is an example where documentation indirection would
pay off.  Describe what happens when one evaluates a defgeneric with no
:method options, and thee is an existing generic function.  No existing
methods on the existing generic function is changed.  

Then state that defgeneric with :method options is equivalent to a
defgeneric with no :method options follwoed by a set of defmethods.  We
have said what happens there as well.  Similar methods get replaced.