Undocumented features & The boonies...

[Scott Turner <srt@UCLA-CS.ARPA>]

Maybe I'm just out peeved about being out in the boonies, but I'm 
tired of seeing people's problems answered with `unreleased features.'
I don't like being told that I can use BOUND? to check to see if something
is bound or not, or that LOADED-FILE-INSTALLED? is the way to fix my
problem.

At UCLA we have a community of people using T right now, and to be told that
some bug or another will be fixed in T47.0 but can be hacked right now
with unreleased feature X is very frustrating.

If people are really using all these features then they ought to be 
documented and released.  It is ridiculous to worry about whether or not
they should be included in the language.  If people are using these features
then they should be in the language, unless there is a very good reason
not to include them.

I realize that this is mostly a flame and not helpful criticism, but I 
can't help that feel that the language designers would be better off 
listening to the users of the language rather than deciding everything
on abstract and probably very personal goals.

					-- Scott Turner