Subject: Re: initial value of *PRINT-CIRCLE*
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 18:36:29 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3211209388543477@naggum.net>

* Kalle Olavi Niemitalo <kon@iki.fi>
| The initial value of *PRINT-CIRCLE* is documented to be false.  If I made
| an init file that changed it to true, would I break some conforming
| programs?

  No.  Any conforming program worth talking abot that depends on it being
  false will have bound it to false.  That is what software quality is all
  about.  Some programmers who do not personally like the standard have a
  tendency to expect other programmers to honor their irrational dislikes
  and try to break other people's code on purpose when they have bound some
  printer control variable to something that is perfectly within the bounds
  of the standard and which could be a reasonable thing to do.  If you find
  such bugs, consider it a very serious conformance bug and demand that the
  vendor fix it.  Also strongly suggest that they remove the programmer who
  has personal gripes with the standard from code that you need to trust,
  and go over it with someone who _cares_ about following specifications,
  because such bugs will recur in his code and you have to test everything,
  which is simply not worth your time or money when you pay for a product.

///