From ... From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: ANSI CL proposal: format Date: 1998/02/22 Message-ID: <3097118960555207@naggum.no>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 327453006 References: mail-copies-to: never Organization: Naggum Software; +47 8800 8879; http://www.naggum.no Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp * Kent M Pitman | Suppose module FOO defined ~= to print an object as its boolean (e.g., 3 | or ALPHA or (C . D) as T, and NIL as NIL). Suppose module BAR defined ~= | to print a sequence as its length. eg., "Foo" or (A B C) as 3. Suppose | I load them both. Won't the second one I load break the first? CL users | don't have define-format-char not because it's hard to thin of or to | implement; it's because it's TOO valuable--no portable program can assume | it loads in a clean environment, nor that it is the ONLY user. hm. cannot this argument be repeated for reader macros and PPRINT and most anything useful that uses global resources? would it not make more sense to define some global object that controlled this, like *READTABLE* or *PRINT-PPRINT-DISPATCH* that removed the possibilities for collisions to the programmer's control? #:Erik -- God grant me serenity to accept the code I cannot change, courage to change the code I can, and wisdom to know the difference.