From: Jeff Dalton
Subject: Re: The New Lisp Machine
Date:
Message-ID: <8762@skye.ed.ac.uk>
In article <···········@cix.compulink.co.uk> ············@cix.compulink.co.uk writes:
>
>I don't have any problem with Common Lisp as a language, and I
>certainly don't see it as less "portable" than C. This is because
>I make a distinction between the language, the implementation I'm
>currently using, and the platform it runs on. The language is not
>a place to put platform specific features, any more than it's a
>place for CPU specific features.
>
>What is "select" anyway? It's not been in the library for any
>C compiler I've used. Maybe this is a Unix thing? Ok, Unix is a
>platform, so select is platform specific, and should only be
>supported in an implementation for that platform, *not* in the
>language definition, and certainly not in an ANSI language.
Wait a minute. That fact that something is _now_ a feature
of Unix is no reason to say it _cannot_ be part of a language.
That simply doesn't follow.
In any case, select is a well-defined operation that could be
included in a language. A basic select is no more suspect that
LISTEN or READ-CHAR-NO-HANG.
-- jd