Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: FUNCALL question
Message-ID: <1676@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Feb 90 16:35:14 GMT
References: <3277@accuvax.nwu.edu> <1990Jan28.175437.19293@hellgate.utah.edu> <2247@papaya.bbn.com> <389@forsight.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 10

In article <389@forsight.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> gat@robotics.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Erann Gat) writes:
 >           However, the way things stand, one careless mistake or
 >ignorant user can require a LONG time to fix.  (One day long ago I
 >typed (defvar x 1) as part of a quick experiment on a TI Explorer
 >and for the next few days no one could understand why their code
 >suddenly didn't work.  Then someone rebooted the machine and all the
 >problems mysteriously vanished.)

Special variables aren't the only thing like this.  Try redefining CAR
or LIST, for example.