[asdf-devel] Cache? Translations? How to get rid of them?

[Robert Goldman]

On 3/15/10 Mar 15 -3:48 PM, Faré wrote:
> On 15 March 2010 15:37, Robert Goldman <rpgoldman at sift.info> wrote:
>> On 3/15/10 Mar 15 -3:20 PM, Faré wrote:

>>>>
>>> Meh, right at the moment I was considering getting rid of asdf:around...
>>
>> Right, but the programmer is likely to want to be able to have his/her
>> own :around method on this function signature....
>>
> 
> What about we reserve
> (defmethod foo :around (op c) ...)
> but advertise
> (defmethod foo :around ((op operation) (c component)) ...)
> as user-definable?

I'm /very/ reluctant to do this, for a number of reasons:

1.  Once burned, twice shy.  We (ASDF) did this for clisp once, and we
/still/ haven't fully recovered.

2.  CL does not really provide language level support (and certainly not
portably) for the notion of "reserving" a method.  This sounds like an
opportunity for a programmer who hasn't read every jot and tittle of the
manual to shoot him/herself in the foot.

3.  It's strictly a matter of conjecture that this will even help ABCL.
 Maybe they're about to add define-method-combination properly.

4.  It means changing code that currently works.  This smells like three
steps forward, two back, and I'd like to see us someday actually release
some code.

I'd /much/ rather we have a conversation with the ABCL folks before we
start whacking this code.

Best,
r