generic-function special form

[Gregor.pa@Xerox.COM]

One of the comments we received was:

    Date: Fri, 15 Apr 88 13:43 PDT
    From: David N Gray <Gray@DSG.csc.ti.com>

    It is not apparent why GENERIC-FUNCTION needs to be a special form
    instead of a macro.

Gregor said:

Because Common Lisp doesn't have lambda macros.


Moon said:

No, that's wrong, because GENERIC-FUNCTION is not something that can be
used inside the FUNCTION special form.  In other words, GENERIC-FUNCTION
evaluates, it doesn't efunctuate.  As far as I can see GENERIC-FUNCTION
could be a macro that expands into MAKE-INSTANCE <generic-function-class>
and a bunch of initargs including some that are forms that construct methods.
I think Gray is right on this one and it's a mistake in the document.
We should check with RPG, who proposed this.

Gregor said:

I am surprised to here that generic-function cannot be used inside the
function special form.  It doesn't say that in the documentation, and
since the method bodies are supplied as forms, I think this must
efunctuate.  It must capture the lexical scope it was used in or else
what is it worth?

What do others think?
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