From: Sam S. <sd...@gn...> - 2004-02-18 22:22:17
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> * Raymond Toy <gb...@eg...> [2004-02-18 16:33:45 -0500]: > > I don't think I read too much. You said -ansi is only for running an > ANSI compliance test. I would think -ansi is for making clisp purport > to conform to the ANSI spec. same thing. Please do not underestimate our commitment to ANSI though. > I also fail to see why I would want ansi behavior for this thing but > not that thing, Because some ANSI requirements, e.g., that negative :COUNT is treated as 0, are detrimental to debugging, others prevent you from printing some pathnames readably, &c. ANSI CL spec is a wonderful standard, but it does have some glitches, and it is unlikely that you would want _ALL_ these places interpreted exactly like the majority. You see, if 80% of the people agree on each questionable issue (which is a very strong majority!) then (assuming independence!) the probability that one would agree with the majority on 3 issues is just above 50% and for 5 issues it is less than 33%. This is why it is generally a good idea to think before using "-ansi". (I am pretty sure that most of CLISP users what *PARSE-NAMESTRING-ANSI* and *MERGE-PATHNAMES-ANSI* set to T and the other 4 variables set to NIL, but this is a really boring subject). On the other hand, _thinking_ about something requires an effort which is often better spent elsewhere. This, by the way, reminds me of the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable which is respected by some GNU utilities. > I hope that would eventually be the default, but it's your perogative > not to do so. Talk to Bruno about it. He has a strong opinion about this. I don't really care. -- Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running w2k <http://www.camera.org> <http://www.iris.org.il> <http://www.memri.org/> <http://www.mideasttruth.com/> <http://www.honestreporting.com> He who laughs last did not get the joke. |