Re: Character Objects (what else!)

[Robert W. Kerns <RWK at MIT-MC>]

I find TK's approach very interesting.  I don't think it is the right one, but
there is much in what he says.  I do think there are many occasions where there
should be more communication between compiler and debugger.  But consider that
not all data can be immediately traced to the code that produced it.
Documentation and "self-knowledge" of objects I think is truly independent of
code.

It's not clear to me that there is any need for characters to be hardware
datatypes, however.  'CONSing' them can mean simply fetching them from an
array, and getting a fixnum from them for various purposes (comparisons, etc.)
can be just an AREF.  The generic operators (+, <, =) would have to know about
them if you take RMS's suggestion, of course, but that's the problem with
generic operators.