Scheme vs. CommonLisp vs. the World

Henry G. Baker hbaker@netcom.com
Mon, 12 May 1997 16:44:14 -0700 (PDT)


> I think I can count on my hands how many people think
> complex numbers should be retained in a new CL.

I agree that complex numbers should _not_ be part of 'basic'/primitive
Lisp, but it should be possible to program them as a library package
on top.  Ditto for bignums.  (Ditto for multidimensional arrays and
other arcania.)

Indeed, one of my complaints in 'Equal Rights' was the inability in CL
to define a new _functional_ type and have it compare correctly.  All
of the CL defstruct and CLOS types were forced by the CL standard to
be mutable (nonfunctional) types.

-- 
Henry Baker
www/ftp directory URL:
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hb/hbaker/home.html