[ARTICLE] Maintaining Portable Lisp Programs

Hi,

I think this is on-topic, and I hope you forgive the vainglory: I have
written an article discussing the use and misuse of *features* in
maintaining portable Lisp programs; it's possible that library and
application writers would find it of interest.

Abstract:

  We examine the use of read-time feature conditionals, with
  particular emphasis on writing portable Common Lisp code which
  aspires to both forwards- and backwards-compatibility.  We examine
  cases from real libraries which demonstrate the various pitfalls,
  and propose a scheme for robust treatment of implementation-specific
  functionality by performing programmatic tests at the appropriate
  time.  We discuss the additional difficulties in dealing with
  differences in the operating environment, and suggest that
  agreements between Lisp distributors would alleviate these
  difficulties.

Paper:

  <http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/papers/features.pdf>

Comments, feedback, etc. welcome.

Cheers,

Christophe
-- 
http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~csr21/       +44 1223 510 299/+44 7729 383 757
(set-pprint-dispatch 'number (lambda (s o) (declare (special b)) (format s b)))
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