Package extensions usage

[Alessio Stalla]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to run a little poll among experienced Lisp developers. The topic
is the usage in the wild of the extensions to the package system provided
by various implementations. My apologies to people who are subscribed to
the ABCL mailing list, where some time ago I submitted the same questions
getting back several insightful answers but no actual data.

So, here is how it is. I'm working on a novel idea (I hope) regarding
symbols and packages; I won't go into the details now. It suffices to say
that there is some overlap with features offered by certain Lisp
implementations, namely:

 * package-local nicknames: the ability to specify, for each package, a
list of nicknames for other packages which are in effect only in that
package; available on ABCL and SBCL (
http://www.sbcl.org/manual/#Package_002dLocal-Nicknames) and possibly other
implementations I'm not aware of.
 * "Hierarchical" packages: a naming convention for packages understood by
the reader and a few support functions, which allow to have concise
nicknames for a group of closely related packages, such as
com.foo.mylib.api and com.foo.mylib.implementation. Found natively in
Allegro CL (http://franz.com/support/documentation/current/doc/packages.htm)
and in an open-source library by P. Bourguignon.

My questions:
1) First and foremost, is anybody actually using those features? What are
you using them for?
2) If yes, how useful are they for you? What shortcomings do you find in
them?
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