Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ukma!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!spice.cs.cmu.edu!jwz
From: jwz@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Jamie Zawinski)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: 'provide' and 'require' and compiled files
Message-ID: <4146@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 29 Jan 89 21:59:07 GMT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 10

It has always seemed to me that PROVIDE and REQUIRE are too vaguely
specified to be useful.  The fact that it is not obvious what the
behavior of REQUIRE is in multiple correct implementations of Common
Lisp means that you cannot really expect use of it to be portable.

Why not use some kind of 'make' utility?  There are several public
domain Lisp make-systems around.  Or, you could do something really
minimalist, and just have a file of calls to LOAD.

Jamie
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