find my slot

[Jon L White <jonl@lucid.com>]

re:     Date: Tue, 27 Nov 1990 12:06 EST
	From:	davis@ilog.ilog.fr

	Of the 5 major CLOS metaobject types (classes, generic functions, 
	methods, method combinations, and slot definitions), three have 
	retrieval functions (FIND-CLASS, FIND-METHOD, FIND-METHOD-COMBINATION),
        and one doesn't need one (generic functions).  What happened to
	FIND-SLOT-DEFINITION?

    It isn't necessary, because CLASS-DIRECT-SLOTS and CLASS-SLOTS are 
    specified to return lists, therefore the existing FIND function can be 
    used (with  :KEY #'SLOT-DEFINITION-NAME).

If Harley's question is only about introspective capabilities, then
we don't need FIND-METHOD either -- because of the documentation for
GENERIC-FUNCTION-METHODS, METHOD-QUALIFIERS, and METHOD-SPECIALIZERS.

However, FIND-CLASS and FIND-METHOD are "Chapter 2" facilities.  Would
you now propose to remove FIND-METHOD?  or would the uniformity of
interface resulting from the addition of FIND-SLOT-DEFINITION be 
better than trying to retrench into a minimal kernal language?


-- JonL --