Martin's questions

[brown@DEC-HUDSON]

1. What LISP or LISPs do you currently use?
     Vax Lisp (Dec Common Lisp) on a 780.

2. Are you primarily a user or an implementor?
     Implementor

4. If you are a common LISP user or implementor, do you have a plan to
   provide a compatibility route for "foreign" LISPS, such as by
   mechanical translation, or compatibility module?
     Not currently, we hope that such packages find their way into
     the Yellow Pages (and might even be willing to help fund the
     generation of these packages).

5. If your plan includes the identification of a subset CL
   (perhaps because you only need or can only afford to implement
    a subset on your machine, in your compatibility module, or
    your translator), 
   could you summarize what criteria you are using to define your subset?
     We currently have no plans to produce a subset of Common Lisp.
     We distinguish between a subset and a self-contained program written
     in Common Lisp which does not include all the language.  We are
     considering various mechanism which would allow a user to create
     an executable program which would require less resource (memory)
     than the full system.


7. Do you see a single subset as sufficient, or do you envision a family
   of subsets, appropriate for different reasons?
     I hope that, at least initially, one subset would be sufficient.
     Any implementation could say "we implement Subset Common Lisp 
     plus ratios."


8. Do you have a subset proposal ready to present to this group, or are
   you working on one?
     The main thing I think is that the subset should be a true subset;
     i.e. a program that is written purely in the subset is gaurenteed
     to work in an implementation of full language.  I believe this
     requires that the subset be lexically scoped.

-Gary Brown