Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!rutgers!att!chinet!mcdchg!nud!sunburn!dover!hume
From: hume@dover.uucp (Chris Hume)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Hidden Information
Keywords: Standards, Rationale, Implementation
Message-ID: <632@dover.uucp>
Date: 5 Jan 89 19:24:45 GMT
Organization: Motorola Sector CAD, Mesa, AZ {dover}
Lines: 21

Thanks Barry, for the pointer to Genera's VARIABLE-xxx special forms
and for the luminous BETTER-xxx example.

There appears to be an information boundary here, where Common LISP
implementations are not expected to make certain internal functions
(like their equivalent of the VARIABLE-xxx special forms) available
to portable code.

Is there a clearly stated consensus on which such internal information
should remain hidden from portable code?

For example, is it intended that one could write a reasonably efficient
Common LISP implementation (for a new machine architecture) entirely in
Common LISP?

Chris
-- 
Christopher N. Hume		Net: ...!sun!sunburn!dover!hume
MOTOROLA, Inc.		 	M/D: DOV05
2222 South Dobson Road		Tel: (602) 994-6835
Mesa, AZ  85202			FAX: (602) 994-6895