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Issue LOOP-INITFORM-ENVIRONMENT Writeup

Issue:        LOOP-INITFORM-ENVIRONMENT

Forum: Editorial

References: LOOP (pages 8-85,

Draft 8.81

Category: CLARIFICATION

Edit history: 05-Mar-91, Version 1 by Pitman

15-Mar-91, Version 2 by Pitman

Status: For X3J13 consideration

Problem Description:

The Symbolics implementation of X3J13's LOOP spec surprised some users

by being incompatible with the old Symbolics Genera LOOP on the

following test case:

(let ((list '(1 2 3)))

(loop for list = list then (cdr list)

until (null list)

do (princ (car list))))

The Symbolics Genera implementation prints nothing, but old Symbolics

Genera LOOP prints 123. In double-checking the implementation against the

working draft specification to determine if the implementation was in

error, more than one Symbolics implementors did not feel this behavior

was clearly enough spelled out and worried that implementations might not

agree.

Further investigation showed that Lucid Common Lisp had the same behavior.

The following are the only references which appeared relevant:

From page 8-85:

The LOOP macro translates the given <form> into code and returns the

expanded <form>. The expanded <form> is one or more <lambda

expressions> for the local <binding> of loop variables and a block

and a tagbody that express a looping control structure. The variables

established in LOOP are bound as if by LET or LAMBDA.

Implementations can interleave the setting of initial values with

the bindings. However, the assignment of the initial values is

always calculated in othe order specified by the user. A variable is

thus sometimes bound to a meaningless value of the correct type

and then later in the prologue is set to the true initial value by

using SETQ.

Later, on page 8-86:

The FOR and AS constructs provide iteration control clauses that

establish a variable to be initialized. FOR and AS clauses can be

combined with the LOOP keyword AND to get parallel initialization and

stepping. Otherwise, the initialization and stepping are sequential.

The need for this information is so fundamental that it should be very

plainly stated. These extremely vague phrases don't really say much

about the environment, and since they don't say what goes into the LET

or the LAMBDA, or even how many LET or LAMBDA forms are involved, they

don't really say much at all.

Further, the vague statement on p8-85 about how LET+SETQ might be used to

implement binding leaves an unusually large amount of latitude to

implementations.

Proposal (LOOP-INITFORM-ENVIRONMENT:INITFORM-BEFORE-BINDING)

Clarify that the initforms in a FOR-AS clause

(each being variously called the <form1>, the <hash-table>, or the

<package> in the `bnf' on pages 8-82..8-83)

are all evaluated (in left to right order) prior to establishing

the binding for any of the the <vars> in the same clause.

Clarify that the initforms in a WITH clause (each being

called a <form1> in the `bnf' on pages 8-82..8-83)

are all evaluated (in left to right order) prior to establishing

the binding for any <varN> in the same clause.

Test Case:

(let ((list '(1 2 3)))

(loop for list = list then (cdr list)

until (null list)

collect (car list)))

=> (1 2 3)

Rationale:

This is what most users who make an analogy to LET or DO will expect.

Current Practice:

Symbolics Genera's FUTURE-COMMON-LISP:LOOP (which purports to conform

to the draft specification) returns NIL.

Symbolics Genera's LISP:LOOP (which purports to conform to CLtL)

returns (1 2 3) for the test case.

Cost to Implementors:

Hopefully small.

Cost to Users:

Hopefully most users will consider this the status quo.

Cost of Non-Adoption:

The specification might be ambiguous on an important point.

Benefits:

Cost of non-adoption is avoided.

Aesthetics:

Clarity improves aesthetics.

Discussion:

Pitman and Moon support this proposal.

JonL opposes this proposal.

A long-winded discussion ensued, excerpts of which follow.

Moon writes:

``It's intentional that implementations should have latitude in

the expansion of LOOP, but not to the extent that the meaning of

the program changes! The problem is that the only thing this

version of the LOOP specification says about the scope of LOOP

variables is that they are lexical unless proclaimed special and

their scope is the loop. This isn't specific enough.

``Also in CLtL2 p.722 there is an example expansion which could be

taken as an argument against the INITFORM-BEFORE-BINDING proposal.

However I don't think that example was intended to talk about

variable scoping. This example does not appear in the draft ANSI

CL spec, which is good in my opinion.''

JonL writes:

``I don't see this as a clarification but as a change; in particular,

it isn't consistent with the section of CLtL/II that you cite:

[... page 8-85 ...]

since it forbids the aforementioned "interleaving". As Moon said,

it is "intentional that implementations should have latitude in

the expansion of LOOP, ...". So the question is just how

importantant is the case of loop variables "shadowing" local

lexical variables? That is, I agree that the current spec is

ambiguous on just when the binding of 'list' occurs in

(let ((list '(1 2 3)))

(loop for list = list then (cdr list)

. . . ))

but I'm more inclined to say SO WHAT? Is the world going into

terminal meltdown just because this case isn't completely portable?

is LOOP completely unusable *** just because of this lexical

shadowing ambiguity?

``The point I'm trying to make is not that this case isn't a problem,

but that it isn't a *big* problem; and even if it remained

ambiguous (as was the intention for the draft proposal -- reasons

cited below), it is nowhere near the magnitude of problem that we

face in other areas.

``... Lucid's LOOP (unchanged for many years now) was modeled after

GSB's MIT code, and it has the same behaviour as Genera. Even if

the "original designers" intended something here, I think Glenn's

execution of it might have led people to think otherwise. ...''

Moon writes:

``I don't see this particular issue as some technical issue of angels

dancing on the heads of pins that is only of real interest to

specialists. It's not uncommon for user programs to use the same

variable name more than once. I hear that users very often find it

frustrating to try to use LOOP because there are implementations around

that do unintuitive things and documentation around that they can't

decode. Those problems are so unnecessary.

``... I just now loaded up the MIT LOOP, unchanged for nearly five

years (unless someone's been changing it without updating the edit

history at the front) from REAGAN.AI.MIT.EDU, and tried the test case

from the cleanup issue. It prints 123, so it conforms to the cleanup.

This makes me suspect that the MIT LOOP has always had the intuitive

behavior, but programmers at Lucid and also at Symbolics broke it in the

process of improving it. I don't think it's true that Glenn implemented

it differently from what the cleanup says.

``So then I tried the CMU implementation referenced in Scott Fahlman's

recent message. It, too, conforms to the cleanup, although it seems to

have its share of bugs (several compiler warnings and errors while

loading that I fixed up and proceeded past).

``... We can always specify a language feature as doing something

unpredictable, but is that really necessary?''

JonL writes:

``I claim this ambiguity is purposeful -- the "interleaving" of binding

and initialization clauses, which in some implementations has

performance consequences -- and that the case that brought this

ambiguity to public attention is not of great consequence to the

language.

``Of course, I agree that we must specify *exactly* the behaviour

of LET when local variables are being shadowed, such as in:

(let ((x (list x))) . . .)

because renaming of bound variables is an important concept (not just

"pinheads dancing on angels"). But LOOP bindings are not documented to

be *exactly* like LET, and they aren't the primariy means to achieve

lexical "shadows"; thus I strongly disagree that seeking out and "fixing"

documented ambiguities in the binding-order for LOOP "shadows" is of high

priority.''


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