MCL2.0b1p2 thoughts

[UK0392@AppleLink.Apple.COM (EHN & DIJ Oakley,BDV)]

Friends (& MCL team),
 
I have now been playing with and even working with MCL 2.0b1 (and p2) for a
little while, and I would beg to start sending some suggestions as to little
improvements (in my eyes) which you might like to think about for 2.0 final (if
you have not already got them scheduled).
 
The two areas which I would first address are:
 
1.  Listener window size & location - this seems immutable, even when saving an
image the listener still pops up in the standard position.  However, would it
not be nicer to (a) set the Listener window size and position relative to the
screen size, (b) enable it to be set in the init.lisp file, and (c) save it in
an image?  If there are means of doing any of these already, please forgive me,
but I cannot find them in the documentation!
 
2.  Flexibility in stripping more than just the compiler when generating an
image to be used as a standalone application.  I have noticed that (with
2.0b1p2 at least) saving an image with the compiler stripped results in a file
which is very little smaller than the original application - in fact, I suspect
that the compiler code is actually not being stripped at present, but just
disabled.  Thinking of the steady stream of folk who are or will be looking at
MCL for straight commercial development, would it not be possible to offer
other options for stripping?  To be able to produce an application less than
about 700 K would be *very* nice!
 
Finally, a little well-deserved praise:  I am *very* impressed by the quality
of printing from Fred - the little touches like line-wrapping (and what
excellent marking for such wraps) make Fred far better than the MPW Shell for
printing source, and of course its ability to handle fonts etc. is really
useful as well.
 
Regards, Howard.