Re: Proposed schedule for change from "/" to "\"

[Guy.Steele at CMU-10A]

So far I have heard *no* objections whatsoever to the proposal
that backslash replace slash as the quoting character, and have
received many messages supporting the idea.  The LISP Machine
people have shown great enthusiasm, and Spice LISP is definitely
committed to using backslash no matter what other LISP systems do.
There is already volunteer manpower to convert MACSYMA and Multics
EMACS for this purpose.

Therefore I propose the following schedule for conversion:
	(1) Announce what's going to happen by February 1.
	(2) On Saturday, March 14, change MacLISP and friends
	    so that both "/" and "\" are quoting characters.
	    Encourage people to use "|" where possible.
	(3) On Sunday, June 14 (Flag Day, of course), change
	    again so that "/" is no longer a quoting character
	    by default.  (Of course, people can still change
	    the readtable for old programs.)

Questions:
(a) Is this schedule all right by everyone concerned?
(b) Does anyone think that operations (2) and (3) should be
    simultaneous rather than staggered?
(c) Any other comments?
--Guy