Re: Argument lists: a proposal to shoot at

[Guy Steele <gls@Think.COM>]

    Date: 26 Jun 1986 19:17-EDT
    From: NGALL@G.BBN.COM

    How about keeping the number of functions down and eliminating the
    'encoding' in MAX-ARGS, and using correct terminology with the
    following one-function alternative to FUNCTION-MIN-ARGS, -MAX-ARGS,
    -HAS-KEYWORD-PARAMETERS, and -KEYWORD-PARAMETERS.  I think
    FUNCTION-KEYWORD-PARAMETER-P addresses an idiom common enough to
    warrant its own function.

    FUNCTION-PARAMETERS function				[Function]

    Returns Q, P, R, K, a list of keywords explicitly accepted by the
    function (order undefined), and A.  Note that if K is false, the list
    is necessarily empty.

I have to admit (blush) that another design criterion I employed implicitly
was that it should be possible to acquire most of the information without
either consing on the fly or requiring an explicit pre-stored list of the
keywords.

In your proposal for FUNCTION-PARAMETERS, I observe that returning K
is redundant: K is true iff [(the keyword list is not empty) or A].
That's not to say that returning K separately isn't a good idea.
    
	--Guy
    -- Nick
--Guy