Applying functions to all the symbols in a package...

[Brad Miller <miller@UR-ACORN.ARPA>]

As a general rule, I find that as a style of coding, MAP and recursion are the
most clear, iteration much less so, and GO's the least so. I realize this may
be somewhat of a religious issue, so I won't go into why I despise iteration,
with the possible exception of array manipulation.

For this reason, I am somewhat surprised, that CL has iterative functions for
fiddling with all they symbols in a package (i.e. DO-SYMBOLS and
DO-EXTERNAL-SYMBOLS but no equivalent MAP forms (e.g. the zetalisp MAPATOMS
and MAPATOMS-ALL). This is particularly surprising in light of the fact that
almost every other MAP function has equivalent iterations forms, and
vice-versa.

I would like to suggest that such functions be added to the CL standard.  I
believe the zetalisp functions mentioned above are sufficient, and provide a
clean user interface.  This would be a downward compatible upgrade.

Brad Miller
------
miller@rochester.arpa
miller@ur-acorn.arpa