Re: Various Topics Discussed Last Week

[Patrick H Dussud <DUSSUD%Jenner%csl.ti.com@RELAY.CS.NET>]

         Date: Mon, 28 Sep 87 09:42:29 MST
         From: kempf%hplabsz@hplabs.HP.COM
     
         2) On blocks in methods:
     
         I agree that Alternative 1 would be best. Users who want something
         different can either use a :AROUND method, as Moon suggested, or 
         program their own generic function dispatching function, using
         the metaobject protocol.
     
     Since we all seem to be agreed on this, I added the following to my
     clos-decisions file, which can be used as a resource to make sure
     we don't forget to document this decision:
     
     2-34 Add to Remarks field: The body of (DEFMETHOD -name- ...) is surrounded
     by an implicit block named -name-, if that is a symbol, or -name1-, if
     -name- is (SETF -name1-), by analogy with DEFUN.  The same applies to
     methods defined by the :METHOD option to DEFGENERIC, GENERIC-FLET,
     GENERIC-LABELS, and WITH-ADDED-METHODS.  There is no implicit block around
     the body of a method defined by the :METHOD option to GENERIC-FUNCTION.
     
     Dissenters speak now.

I agree with this.
     
         7) On NEXT-METHODS:
     
         The primary reason is for being able to tell if calling CALL-NEXT-METHOD
         would signal an error. I understand Masinter's concern, and wonder if
         perhaps it might not be better to handle this with Ken Pitman's error
         proposal. Other than finding out whether a call to CALL-NEXT-METHOD is
         valid, there isn't much use for the list of next methods, as Masinter
         has pointed out.
     
     I have no real opinion on this, but we could change this to NEXT-METHOD,
     which returns the method object that CALL-NEXT-METHOD would call if
     there is one, and returns NIL if CALL-NEXT-METHOD would signal the
     no-more-methods error.  Then we wouldn't have to worry about the
     implications of consing, rplac'ing, and looking at the list.

I don't have objections to that, we could even make it a predicate,
NEXT-METHOD-P returns T if there is a next method, and NIL otherwise.

Patrick.