> The first sign of trouble is the sheer weight of CLTL.
Was this simply an issue of trying to put (what should have been?) library functionality into the language?
I've never been sure at what point one should stop adding the next keyword argument or handling the next edge case: if things are designed so that it's easy to do only when necessary.
CL seemed to accrete functionality better left to specific use-cases, but re-inventing the wheel sucks too. Back then it seemed like a lot could have been done with CL addons but instead it was pushed into the spec.
(Caveat: I don't remember stuff that happened yesterday, let alone in the very late 80's/early 90's, when I was working in CL.)
Was this simply an issue of trying to put (what should have been?) library functionality into the language?
I've never been sure at what point one should stop adding the next keyword argument or handling the next edge case: if things are designed so that it's easy to do only when necessary.
CL seemed to accrete functionality better left to specific use-cases, but re-inventing the wheel sucks too. Back then it seemed like a lot could have been done with CL addons but instead it was pushed into the spec.
(Caveat: I don't remember stuff that happened yesterday, let alone in the very late 80's/early 90's, when I was working in CL.)