Subject: Re: initial value of *PRINT-CIRCLE* From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 18:36:29 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3211209388543477@naggum.net> * Kalle Olavi Niemitalo <kon@iki.fi> | The initial value of *PRINT-CIRCLE* is documented to be false. If I made | an init file that changed it to true, would I break some conforming | programs? No. Any conforming program worth talking abot that depends on it being false will have bound it to false. That is what software quality is all about. Some programmers who do not personally like the standard have a tendency to expect other programmers to honor their irrational dislikes and try to break other people's code on purpose when they have bound some printer control variable to something that is perfectly within the bounds of the standard and which could be a reasonable thing to do. If you find such bugs, consider it a very serious conformance bug and demand that the vendor fix it. Also strongly suggest that they remove the programmer who has personal gripes with the standard from code that you need to trust, and go over it with someone who _cares_ about following specifications, because such bugs will recur in his code and you have to test everything, which is simply not worth your time or money when you pay for a product. ///