Re: characters

[Richard J. Fateman <RJF at MIT-MC>]

One of the nice things about lisp is that objects can have properties.
For example, some representations of characters have widths associated
with them. Others are digits, special characters, or alphabetic.
While collating sequences are useful, they are not the only thing...

Some people would even like to have property lists for numbers, you
know.

I know there are other ways of associating information with objects,
but if readc returns a symbol (atom; pointer if you will) it all fits
together. 

It may sound revolutionary to this group, but maybe, in the face of an
actual application involving characters, one would be wise to avoid
LISP, and use a language with other characteristics.  Some implementations
of LISP can be used fairly comfortably with other languages.
Certainly if efficiency in reading/writing is of critical importance,
the "unspoken alternative" of not using LISP is worth considering.

In the absence of an actual application, discussions can go on
indefinitely.