Subject: Re: MOP - Part of the standard or not? From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 17 Aug 2002 20:31:11 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3238605071286211@naggum.no> * Jochen Schmidt | I'm not _so_ sure about that. He is a bit nasty in some words yes - but I | still think that he really wants to learn Lisp. We could give him at least a | chance. His posts are obviously on topic even if he is not necessarily right | in any of his claims. This is interesting. /ilias/ is "on topic"? And what about all the chances he deliberately squandered? Seriously, this is an ill-behaved runt that people should not respond to. | I want to emphasise that such things are much less a problem if one uses CLOS | and classes instead of structures. […] Claiming that it is a limitation of | the language would be […] like claiming that fixnums […] cannot grow | arbitrary big (as one should choose bignums to get this...). Precisely—it is a feature. Persisting in arguing that it is a limitation when people tell you otherwise is annoying and only goes to show a lack of desire to learn the language coupled with a desire to "fix" it. Structures have better optimizability because their layout is known at compile time, redefinition is not defined, and single inheritance can only append slots. Choose structures if you are willing to give up some of the flexibility in exchange for different performance. Choose classes if you want the flexibility back. Portability between structures and classes is limited to the constructor functions. [This should double as a test of posting with UTF-8.] -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.