Exporting Structures

[Scott E. Fahlman <Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>]

By "semi-official extension" I mean something like the following:

 From time to time we will discover shortcomings in the language that can
be fixed in an upward-compatible way.  If the fix is just to add more
functions, then a yellow-pages package is the proper vehicle.  But if
the fix is to extend existing things by adding new keyword options or
handling cases that were illegal before, and we all agree that the
change is worthy of inclusion in the next edition of the manual, then we
all just happen to make the same extension to our implementations at the
same time and this change is registered in some central place.  That way
we (and our users) will not be wandering off in 27 different directions
that will be incompatible with the change that is going to be adopted.
I suppose that it is not legal for packages to claim portability if they
use such changes prior to their official adoption, but at least people
who jump the gun will be heading in the right direction.

All these bureaucratic mechanisms need to be worked out in greater
detail one of these days.

-- Scott