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2nd generation LOOP macro



    One reason (for putting LOOP in the white pages) is that it is
    unlikely that any portable code I write will do its iteration
    with PROG or DO. -- Moon

Well, it is OK to write a portable package that explicitly requires
something from the yellow pages, so we could still use your portable
code and include the LOOP package with it.  If the white pages are to
include everything that any individual wants to use in his code then we
would have to include CGOL, Interlisp Compatibility Package, Flavors,
three kinds of Smalltalk, Actors, Dick Waters' pseudo-Fortran macros,
etc.

My philosophy on this, such as it is, is that when a package is not
essential and when there is a substantial portion of the community that
has some doubts about the package's merits, it should go into the yellow
pages.  There it can compete in the marketplace of ideas.  Perhaps it
will come to be used by most of us, and we can promote it to the white
pages at that time.  Perhaps something better will come along to fill
the same niche, and in that case we will not be burdened with the
original package forever.  Perhaps users will decide that it is easier
just to do whatever the package does by hand than to remember its
complexities, and in that case we will have spared the readers of the
white pages from dealing with a lot of needless complexity.

I could be wrong, but I think that the proposed LOOP package only
appeals to a few of us.  If so, I think a probationary period in the
yellow pages is appropriate.  If I'm wrong and I'm the last holdout for
the old Lispy syntax, then LOOP should go directly into the white pages;
in that case, I hope it can be documented very clearly, since new users
are going to have to absorb it all.

-- Scott