Re: :accessor-prefix bug

[Gregor.pa@Xerox.COM]

    From: Rick.Busdiecker@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU

        Date: 29 Sep 87 12:20 PDT
        From: Gregor.pa@Xerox.COM
        Subject: Re: :accessor-prefix bug

        NOTE:  we decided last week to remove the :accessor-prefix
        and :reader-prefix options from defclass.  This means that you
        will have to start using just :accessor and :reader.

    Why?  Is there some benefit that out-weighs the added verbosity?


Yes, because these options had to call intern in order to work, and
there we a number of problems about what package the constructed symbol
should be interned in.  The 3 proposed solutions all had problems.
Specifically:

 * intern the new symbols in the value of *package* at the time the
defclass form is processed.
 - this is problematic because *package* is a special variable and under
certain circumstances this can lead to surprising behavior

 * intern the new symbols in the package of the slot-name
 - this is often not what you want.  If you have a slot named list, and
a prefix of foo-, and your program is in your own package, you probably
want the symbol to be my-package::foo-list not lisp::foo-list

 * intern the symbols in the package of the prefix symbol
 - often, this is likely to solve the problem presented in the second
bullet, but it won't work in general and is kind of a crock.



Note that we also got rid of the :prefix option to with-slots for
basically the same set of reasons.