Re: CLOS defining macros & compilation

[sandra%defun@cs.utah.edu (Sandra J Loosemore)]

> Date: Thu, 23 Feb 89  17:42:47 CST
> From: David N Gray <Gray@DSG.csc.ti.com>
> 
> >   The descriptions of the expansions of the DEFCLASS, DEFMETHOD, and
> >   DEFGENERIC macros in the meta-object protocol document assume that
> >   lexical environment objects received with &ENVIRONMENT have indefinite
> >   extent.
> 
> Not really, unless you've noticed something I missed.  Some objects in
> the environment (class definitions in particular) have an extent
> corresponding to the duration of the invocation of COMPILE-FILE, but the
> environment objects themselves, as received by a macro, do not need to
> be used outside the extent of that macro invocation.

We all seem to be converging on the idea that compile-time
side-effects from macros should be handled by having the macro expand
into an (EVAL-WHEN (COMPILE) ...).  The MOP document specifies that
the environment object be passed as an argument to calls to FIND-CLASS
(or whatever) that happen as a compile-time side-effect.  This implies
that the environment object would have to appear as a quoted constant
in the macro expansion.  The proposal to give macro environment
objects dynamic scope would give them dynamic scope *within the macro
function*, which means it would not be legitimate for them to appear
at all in the expansion returned from the macro. 

-Sandra
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