[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Array proposal



This is good.

    the type of the elements, as specified by the :TYPE keyword to
    MAKE-ARRAY (actually, I would much prefer :ELEMENT-TYPE as the keyword
    for this option, since :TYPE is confusing here).
I am strongly in favor of this.  The current :TYPE keyword to MAKE-ARRAY
means something entirely different from element-type, but I had given up
hope of getting it back after it was "stolen".  :ELEMENT-TYPE is much
clearer.

The CHAR and BIT functions can go away since they are just duplications
of AREF.  Programs for some implementations might want to define macros
that generate AREF with a THE declaration.

Making all vectors (1-D arrays) default to printing is wrong.  What's
so special about 1-dimensionality.  Arrays created by typing in the #(...)
syntax would have their printing-bit set, of course.

How do sequence-returning functions decide what to use for the printing-bit
of their result?

There is a fairly serious conflict between wanting strings with fill-pointers
to print as ordinary strings, and wanting them to print in a way that reads
as a string with a fill-pointer.  I don't have a suggestion about this,
especially since I am not a strong believer in printing things out and reading
them back in anyway.