On Apr 28, 2006, at 7:31 PM, Pascal Bourguignon wrote: > Since writing a keyword is easier than writing a string, for > interactive use, it's acceptable to use keywords instead of strings, > but in programs, I always use strings, to avoid growing indefinitely > the KEYWORD package.
And if this were c.l.l. someone (Duane Retig, I think, usually does it) would point out that at may also not matter in compiled code. That is, if you write: (defpackage :foo (:use :cl) (:export :bar)) the DEFPACKAGE macro may well translate the keyword symbols into strings during expansion so a file containing this DEFPACKAGE form that is compiled with COMPILE-FILE will result in the same code in the .fasl file as one containing: (defpackage "FOO" (:use "CL") (:export "BAR")) and thus will intern the same number of symbols in the KEYWORD package when the .fasl is loaded in a new Lisp, i.e. none. On the other hand if you COMPILE-FILE the file and then dump an image, the image will contain the keyword symbol that were read while compiling the file. So it depends how you operate. -Peter -- Peter Seibel * [EMAIL PROTECTED] Gigamonkeys Consulting * http://www.gigamonkeys.com/ Practical Common Lisp * http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ _______________________________________________ Gardeners mailing list [email protected] http://www.lispniks.com/mailman/listinfo/gardeners
