Subject: Re: I like WHEN/UNLESS Was: Promoting CL Was: What I want from my Common Lisp vendor and the Common Lisp community From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 17:43:33 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3208700608725248@naggum.net> * John Foderaro <jkf@xspammerx.franz.com> > 'if' is not a macro, it's a special form. > > Try to replace the definition of a special form in your favorite lisp. What _are_ you talking about? > If I had exported code which required people to redefine a special form > in their Lisp to run it, I would have been criticized and correctly. Why? What is this "replace" and "redefine" about? > As it is I just used a macro which can be added to any Common Lisp and > thus makes my code a valid Common Lisp program. And shadow-importing the symbol if from a different package than the common-lisp package into your application package, with a new macro definition would _not_ have made it a valid Common Lisp program? I have often gotten the impression that you are still programming in some ancient pre-Common Lisp langauge and do not really know what is in Common Lisp these days, or at least do not use it, but I wonder if you have ever studied the standard to see what is there. Sometimes, "experience" can get a little stale. ///