Re: (progn 'compile ...)

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

    Date: 7 December 1980 16:11-EST
    From: Earl A. Killian <EAK at MIT-MC>
    Subject:  (progn 'compile ...)
    To: LISP-FORUM at MIT-MC

    I've also always wondered about this lossage.  It seems to me
    that top-level forms ought to be considered as forms in a setup
    function that gets compiled and that is called automatically at
    load time.  Is there something wrong with this?  Does it have
    undesirable semantics, or is it just implementation reasons?
Well, the problem with this in MacLisp is that compiled functions cannot be
garbage collected.  Thus these 'setup functions' would remain forever.  On the
PDP-10 this would be rather fattening.