symbol-class is bad name

[Jon L White <edsel!jonl@labrea.stanford.edu>]

re: Consider the situation if we had a true lisp-1.  If that were the case,
    classes, functions and `variables' would share the same namespace.  

Not relevant.  global datastructures can be reasonably named by techniques
other than global variables.  Strings, for example.


re: The idea is that only a symbol can name a class, . . .

This is a retro-grade assumption.  Part of my criticism was precisely that 
the name symbol-class prematurely tends to close off the name extension
issue.  Since CLOS has already swallowed the pill of "unnamed classes"
then there is no logical ground within CLOS itself against reasonable
name extension.  It's an exact parallel of "unnamed functions" to
"function specs".


re: The idea is that only a symbol can name a class, so the function should 
    have the string "symbol" in it.

If ever we need to invoke moon's argument-by-reduction-to-ridiculous, this
is a place to do so.  E.g., since only strings name packages, then the
function that finds packages should have the string "string" in it's name?


Given that you yourself were at one time calling the functionality
CLASS-NAMED (from LOOPS days?), and that other non-LispMachine types
object to calling the functionality SYMBOL-CLASS for essentially the
same reasons as I listed, then I wonder what the problem is all about?


-- JonL --