Re: t and nil in pure memory?

[David Kastrup]

Sam Steingold <address@hidden> writes:

>> * Chong Yidong <address@hidden> [2009-11-20 00:47:18 -0500]:
>>
>> FWIW, in CLISP and CMUCL (unintern nil) and (unintern t) are no-ops
>> returning nil.  Presumably the other CL implementations do likewise.
>
> This is not true about CLISP (and presumably other CL implementations).
>
> [2]> (unintern cl:t :cl)
>
> ** - Continuable Error
>
> i.e., it IS possible to remove the T symbol (with all the trouble this
> entails).
>
> As a CLISP maintainer, I don't think T & NIL are special enough.

I am quite appalled to what my reductio ad absurdum argument has lead.
The original topic was in the thread title, and I pointed out that
obarray chains ending in pure memory do not need further modification.
Then it was pointed out that unintern may change the game in that
respect, and I replied that I did not think this much of a concern for t
and nil.

>From then things went downhill.

-- 
David Kastrup