[Ecls-list] Status of CVS

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 3:53 AM, Juan Jose Garcia-Ripoll
<jjgarcia at users.sourceforge.net>

>
>  So why is this so? The reason is that SBCL (and probably CMUCL)
>  automatically inserts type checks at the beginning of this function.
>  These checks will ensure that the arguments of the function have the
>  right types or, otherwise, enter the debugger. This is a nonstandard
>  feature, but it seems that there is some code laying around that
>  assumes this behavior. In particular, the CLX library shipped with
>  SBCL and which some people here have tried to build.

I've found that behaviour highly helpful when porting Axiom to SBCL -- in
contrast, ECL's compiler would silently die with `mysterious' files
left all over
the places. It is an invaluable debugging tool, especially when
porting legacy codes
to newer systems.

>
>  So, from now on, ECL will follow this nonstandard behavior and also
>  generate safety checks if SAFETY >= 1.

Excellent!  If the check were cheap, I would even suggest to add them
at safety 0.

-- Gaby