[Openmcl-devel] ILISP & compiling

[Gary Byers]

On Thu, 21 Feb 2002, Hamilton Link wrote:

> > The COMMON-LISP-USER package is supposed to be the default initial
> > package (and shouldn't contain anything that'd conflict with anything
> > inherited from any packages it uses.)
>
> I dunno, Gary, it sounds like openmcl has a user, so maybe at least
> *package* should be fixed in the next release. IMHO it's easier for the
> developers to change it back in their own versions when they need to
> than for users (especially those new to lisp that aren't familiar with
> packages yet) to figure out what to fix. Maybe *package* can't be fixed
> by itself, I wouldn't know.
>
> In the mean time, Brian, unless Gary thinks this won't work without
> fixing other things as well, when you first start openmcl, execute the
> following commands to fix the *package* default issue
>
> (setf *package* (find-package :cl-user))

Or just
(in-package "CL-USER")

> (ccl:save-application "PPCCL")  ; or "dppcl.image" for Darwin/MacOSX.
>

That'll work.  (It's trickier to load a file which does that, since
LOAD binds *PACKAGE*.)


> Then exit lisp and fire it up again to check that it worked -- just type
> in *package* and make sure it's the common lisp user package. Finally
> reload series or whatsit and see if that fixed the problem.
>

They're obviously orthogonal issues, but setting the initial package
is intertwined in my mind with other things that are/were done to
prepare MCL for end-user consumption.  (Those other things involve
enabling certain warnings and marking functions/methods as being
"builtin" and therefore harder to accidentally redefine.

I think of those steps as being irreversible, but the code (in
"ccl:lib;prepare-mcl-environment.lisp" just sets some bits (which
could be cleared ...) and causes some method's classes to change
(they could be changed back ...).  If it's indeed possible to
switch between "development mode" and "end-user mode" at runtime,
we wouldn't all have to maintain separate images.  Switching between
modes is a little more than setting *PACKAGE*, but it's not as much
more as I'd been thinking it was.

> hamilton
>
>
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