LispMachine File Reading Time

[barmar@THINK.COM]

   Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1990 9:09:38 PST
   From: price%iris.usc.edu@usc.edu (Keith Price)

   I only claimed that I was using the local system (system designer) defaults - 
   designers are responsible for doing things right, if they don't they deserve 
   comments. 

Defaults aren't always chosen for performance reasons.  For instance, in
Common Lisp the default comparison function for MEMBER, DELETE, etc. is
EQL, not the (potentially) more efficient EQ.  Defaults are usually chosen
for their more common utility.

I think Common Lisp specifies that files are opened as string-char streams
by default because this is most portable.  If a program writes and reads
string-char stream, then it works if the writing is done in one CL
implementation and the reader is in another implementation.

						barmar