Subject: Re: defvar and (declaim (special ...)) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1999/04/14 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3133044438527663@naggum.no> * Vassil Nikolov <vnikolov@poboxes.com> | I asked that as a general question, I don't have a specific case at hand. then my specific question is how you came to ask that general question. this is not to quibble -- I need to know how you come upon questions the answer for which has no expectation of value to you. I realize that underneath your approach is a desire to let the answers to the question define the meaning of the question and that it would be an interesting exercise to find the most valuable answer in this regard, and that I thwart your approach by asking you to make the question specific before it has any meaning, i.e., answers, _but_ I would still very much like to know what thought processes generate the questions and what they are based on. I think I could fill the underlying desire to learn in much more efficient ways, or learn from same in much more efficient ways, if I knew what makes up a good question of the kind you make. incidentally, I think computing the optimum load-order for a set of both functions and variables and declarations and macros and all this good stuff is a very challenging task, which effectively asks of a fully loaded system "how did you get here, and what's the best way to do it over again". this question could also be asked of a running Unix system to make it dump configuration files in such a way that it would return to the same state after a boot sequence, so it is a question that pertains to any system that accepts changes to itself after it has started running. #:Erik -- environmentalists are much too concerned with planet earth. their geocentric attitude prevents them from seeing the greater picture -- lots of planets are much worse off than earth is.