Subject: Re: Scoping Question
From: rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock)
Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 04:19:45 -0600
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <8fidnbGL-MlcXOjeRVn-qA@speakeasy.net>
Alan Crowe  <alan@cawtech.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
+---------------
| rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) writes:
| >     ; Loading #p"/usr/u/rpw3/eval-patch.x86f".
| >     ...[drop into debugger because of locked package, select CONTINUE]...
| >     T
| >     cmu> (setf foo 37)
| >     Warning:  Proclaiming FOO special.
| > 
| >     37
| >     cmu> 
| > 
| > Is that better?  ;-}  ;-}
| 
| Yes. It is a huge improvement, but are you just toying with me?
+---------------

Well, maybe.  ;-}  It depends on how you look at it. The patch code
was real, and the messages were real.

+---------------
| Are you one of the maintainers for CMUCL? Is that it really fixed,
| or will 19c be back to saying "Warning: Declaring FOO special."?
+---------------

No. No, and probably.

But the *real* point was that you can fix it yourself, just as I did,
*without* needing to build all of CMUCL. That's one of the really nice
things about Lisp, IMHO. You don't have to sit on your thumbs and wait
for the "official" maintainers to fix something.[1]


-Rob

[1] Well, usually. At least for small stuff like the above, or, for
    another example, the CMUCL & SBCL problem with place-mutating forms
    applied to symbol macros that somebody posted a fix for recently.

    Doubtless from time to time there appear pervasive and subtle
    problems that can't be fixed with a simple overlay patch, but
    they seem to be much more rare.

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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