OPERATION-HANDLED-P slows READ

[kanderso@DINO.BBN.COM]

READing from a string is about twice as fast than reading from a
stream.  In fact, reading each line of a file into a string and then
reading from the string is twice as fast as just reading the file.
The main difference is due to (SEND STREAM :OPERATION-HANDLED-P :READ)
which is called by an internal read function.  In a typical file
stream this requires MEMBERing down a list of 92 items, while when
reading from a string, the list is quite short.

So by having streams optimize this case you can double the performance
of READ.  In the 7.2 world i'm using, at least, no stream handles the
:READ message.

k