Sun Opposition To Chapter 3 Hereby Tendered

[kempf@Sun.COM]

I hereby withdraw my support from the current and any future drafts 
of Chapter 3, and tender Sun's opposition, unless substantial changes
are made. The purpose of CLOS is to provide a standard for object-oriented
programming in Common Lisp. While the design specified in Chapters 1 & 2 
occasionally required features to be added which current object-oriented 
languages do not have, the rationale behind these features and the effects on
implementation were understood to a large degree. I do not feel that is
the case with Chapter 3. There are many issues involved in supporting
metaobject programming which are not understood. I feel that the
current design effort is making the wrong choices in certain areas without
understanding the consequences. Solidifying these choices into a standard
runs the risk of hindering further developments. 

Should the issue of Chapter 3 come to a vote before the full committee,
I will recommend that Sun vote against it. I will continue to support
Chapters 1 & 2 wholeheartly, since I believe the language specified
therein offers application programmers the best alternative among the current 
object-oriented languages for flexible and efficient applications development.

		jak