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Rules of the game



I agree with all of this, except for point 3 (Compatible extensions),
which I think is somewhat dubious.  Accepting this point means that we
can sit here and add feature after feature.  Anyone comtemplating
supporting Common Lisp will have to be told "Not only do you have to
implement everything in this book, but there will probably be a steady
stream of new features that you are REQUIRED to implement, lest some
guaranteed-white-pages-compatible program not be able to run on your
system."  Is that really fair to the world?

A great deal of discussion on this mailing list has been related to
things that certainly do not fall within the domains of points 1, 2, 4,
and 5.  I think our time would be far better spent on those points than
on designing a new version of Common Lisp.  I agree with Fateman's
general point about CL '84 and CL '86, and I think we should spend our
time where it is most urgently needed: on CL '84.