compatibility package for ANSI CL?

    Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 20:55 EST
    From: Francois-Rene Rideau <[email protected]>

    Dear Symbolics users,

    is there a package that integrates all the stuff that would allow compliant
    ANSI CL programs to run unmodified on Genera 8.3?

I have a start of doing some of this; I'll email it to you (and anyone
else who wants it) separately.  Let me know what things you find that
don't work.  It was developed to add to Genera 8.5; I believe it runs
in 8.3 as well, but I don't have one easily accessible to test.

    While trying to run code, I've found that things like READ-SEQUENCE,
    DECLAIM, (LAMBDA ...) without #', and more, are lacking.
    These are small things, but I feel like the Right Thing would be to
    patch genera toward learning CL rather than backporting to Genera
    (or maybe you will convince me that it isn't).

    Are there already patches available somewhere?
    If I have to make my own, where should I begin from?
    (I'm currently perusing S C patch in DocEx...)
    What is the Right Thing to do, and what are the catches to avoid?
    Is it the right thing to modify the FUTURE-COMMON-LISP package,
    or should I make a new package that imports symbols from it, and
    exports new ones? Is it the right thing to modify files and patch them,
    or to add new files? I'm told there is already a READ-SEQUENCE somewhere;
    where is it, and how should I have found it? etc.

The approach I took was to add a nickname of ANSI-COMMON-LISP to the
FUTURE-COMMON-LISP package and make changes there.  In a future release of
Genera, FUTURE-COMMON-LISP will become the nickname.

    Trying to get the Lisp lore without a guru at hand is not easy.
    Did you bootstrap your learning by being in contact with gurus,
    or did you have tips to learn without a guru at hand?

The main tip I have is "m-. is your friend", i.e. look at the source.
A corollary is that the c-m-<suspend>, the debugger, trap on call and
trap on exit, (si:enable-who-calls :all) and m-x List callers are your
friends too.

  Kalman