I couldn't find what I needed in the FAQ, so here goes...
I ftp'ed a simulation package written in lisp and when I followed the
instructions for running it, I got the message "function PROVIDE undefined".
I've had a look at the manual and it says that some committee or other voted
to phase out PROVIDE and REQUIRE in 1988. Since then, I've noticed that
there are a heck of a lot of REQUIREs throughout the code.
This all sounds fairly serious to me. Am I right in thinking it would be
better for me to give up now than try to get it going? As you might have
guessed, I'm a complete beginner at using lisp.
David Norman (······@cs.aukuni.ac.nz)
" Of course, I see things like this...:-| " - policeman from the Young Ones
In article <··········@ccu2.auckland.ac.nz> ······@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (David Hikaru Norman) writes:
>I ftp'ed a simulation package written in lisp and when I followed the
>instructions for running it, I got the message "function PROVIDE undefined".
>I've had a look at the manual and it says that some committee or other voted
>to phase out PROVIDE and REQUIRE in 1988. Since then, I've noticed that
>there are a heck of a lot of REQUIREs throughout the code.
Yes, we (X3J13, the ANSI Common Lisp standardization committee) voted to
get rid of PROVIDE and REQUIRE. But we later voted to put them back, but
deprecate them. This second vote happened after CLtL2 was published.
So any Common Lisp that doesn't support them conforms neither to the de
facto standard (CLtL1) nor the upcoming ANSI standard.
--
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.
······@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar