Re: restructuring packages

[Bruno H. <ha...@il...>]

Sam writes:

> There is a pending package issue, BTW: merging CL-USER with USER and CL
> with LISP, and moving all the extensions from LISP to EXT.
> Do you agree with this?

Yes.

> (this will imply killing the ugly "posix" package, of course!)

No it won't. What should be done:
1) Move all the documented "platform independent extensions" to
   package EXT.
2) The platform specific extensions:
   2.1 remains in package SCREEN
   2.3 remains in package FFI
   2.4 remains in package AFFI
   2.5 should be moved to a package REXX
       but imported and reexported from package EXT
   2.6 should be moved to a package SOCKET
       but imported and reexported from package EXT
   2.7 remains in package POSIX

The reason for _more_ packages is to allow applications to use
only the SOCKET functions without fearing name clashes because
of other symbols exported from EXT.

The reason for reexporting things from package EXT is to maintain
compatibility with earlier clisp versions, and because sockets are
quite useful for ad-hoc scripting uses.

Bruno