Re: Getting act together on strings

[Guy.Steele at CMU-10A]

I observe that as a general rule string functions specifying substrings
use a start position and end position on the LISP Machine, but in NIL
theytake a start position and a count.  Inasmuch as all the function
names got chosen differently too that's not so bad, I guess...
I think LM has STRING-EQUAL and NIL has STRING-EQUALP, LM has
SUBSTRING and NIL has STRING-SUBSEQ, etc.
WHat a confusing mess!
If that's not enough, the function STRING does different things
on the two machines (though I think they could be merged compatibly).

Maybe it's too much to ask to make the LISPs completely compatible,
but let's start on one small area at a time.  How about some dialogue
on what to do about the current situation?  In particular, I'd like
to hear some rationale for why each group did the string functions
the way they did; for example, do they stem from architectural
considerations?
--Guy