RMSCL

No FORMAT

To: INFO-LISPM at MIT-AI Subject: FORMAT From: RMS at MIT-AI (Richard M. Stallman) Date: Mon, 5 May 80 22:13:00 EDT

Since FORMAT is now as hairy and ugly as TECO, I have written a more Lispy replacement, RMS;OUTPUT >. It may be more verbose for simple things, but ought to yield more readable code for anything complicated since you use the ordinary Lisp control constructs.

No MULTIPLE-VALUE-SETQ

To: common-lisp at SU-AI From: Richard M. Stallman Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1982 08:24:00 -0000

I agree with Fahlman about binding constructs. I want LAMBDA to be the way it is, and LET to be the way it is, and certainly not the same.

As for multiple values, if LET is fully extended to do what SETF can do, then (LET (((VALUES A B C) m-v-returning-form)) ...) can be used to replace M-V-BIND, just as (SETF (VALUES A B C) ...) can replace MULTIPLE-VALUES. I never use MULTIPLE-VALUES any more because I think that the SETF style is clearer.

COMPOSE

To: common-lisp at SU-AI Subject: COMPOSE From: Richard M. Stallman Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1982 06:27:00 -0000

COMPOSE can be defined as a lambda macro, I think.

No SET

To: common-lisp at SU-AI Subject: SET From: Richard M. Stallman Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1982 21:54:00 -0000

I am happy to have SET eliminated from the definition of common lisp, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to stop supporting it, with its present meaning, on the Lisp machine. I don't want to find every SET in the Lisp machine system, or make the users do so.

Use EQUAL instead of EQL for comparison by default

To: info-lispm-mit at MIT-OZ Subject: Function MEMBER to be changed? From: Richard M. Stallman RMS@MIT-OZ Date: Sunday, June 19, 1983 8:16AM-EDT

It happens that the Common Lisp plan involves changing the function MEMBER (and ASSOC and DELETE and REMOVE) to use EQL instead of EQUAL for comparison. (EQL is like = on numbers, like EQ on everything else).

I have urged them to call the new functions MEMBERP and other new names so that the old names MEMBER, ASSOC, etc. can be unchanged.

I expect most of you prefer to have the existing names not change their meanings. I'd like to know whether you think this is important. Please send me mail about what you feel about this, and I will pass it on to the Common Lisp designers. (If you prefer to have MEMBER change, you can tell me that.)