Re: No to CL packages

[Gerd Möllmann]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> CL packages are badly designed, and can't work well if implemented in
> the natural way (at read time).

In your opinion.

A lot of people involved in Command Lisp standardizatoun and
implementation think they work well enough, and in my and other's
experience they do.

> The symbol-renaming system, shorthands, is meant can be the basis of a
> much better implementation of namespaces.  We just need to finish it.

I see no need to invent yet another package system.

> With that, we will be able to implement packages that work reliably
> and without ambiguities.

You mention reliability and ambiguity.  What do you mean, in a concrete
example?

P.S.

In case you're thinking in terms of the pre-CL package system that some
Lisp machines had in the 80s, please read chapter 11 of "Common Lisp the
Language 2nd edition" by Guy Steele.  CL's package system is not like
the older one.

CMU has a page from which you can download the book in various formats:
        
  https://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/cltl/cltl2.html