Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 35c893d 2/2: Move gensym to core Elisp

[Alex]

Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> writes:

>> It was just simpler to not duplicate the code for such a small
>> historical tidbit.
>
> Damn!  So still no explanation for that weird functionality.
>
>
>         Stefan

According to [1] (page 53), MACLISP didn't have a visible
gensym-counter, and instead used an integer argument to gensym to allow
programs to set an internal counter. According to [2], it was only
decided in 1989 to have *gensym-counter* in CL, so before then having an
integer argument made sense if you wanted to manipulate the gensym
state.

I don't think an integer argument makes much sense when there's a
visible counter available. Checking it only in cl-gensym and not in
gensym is a nice idea, but I wonder if people who use an integer
argument here are the type of people to use `cl' instead of `cl-lib'.

Footnotes: 
[1]  
http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/MIT/Moon-MACLISP_Reference_Manual-Apr_08_1974.pdf

[2]  https://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/cltl/clm/node110.html