intercepting undefined function errors

[David L. Andre <DLA@DIAMOND.S4CC.Symbolics.COM>]

    Date: Wed, 5 Aug 87 15:44 EDT
    From: Brewster Kahle <KAHLE@Think.COM>

	Date: Wed, 5 Aug 87 12:34 EDT
	From: Jeffrey P. Golden <jpg@allegheny.scrc.symbolics.com>

	We are running Beta Version 2.00 on the Apollo.

	As you may know, MACSYMA has long had an "autoload" feature 
	whereby an "undefined function" may have an AUTOLOAD property 
	which indicates a file which contains the function's definition. 
	The file is loaded when a call to the undefined function is 
	attempted.  (This scheme was very useful in the days of limited 
	address space.  It is still used to autoload a few "share" files.)

    I wrote a local hack that does the same thing, but in a different way:
    Vdefun takes a function-name and a file-name (or system name).  It
    creates a function that has the same name and takes &rest args.  The
    function loads the file and recalls the function.  This takes alittle
    more space than the maclisp property method, but it has the advantage that it
    the compiler does not complain of undefined functions, it is easy to
    write, and it works on any commonlisp.

I guess you would have a NOTINLINE declaration for the recursive call,
so that the compiler doesn't generate tail recursion.