bug#52290: 28.0.90; Undocumented generalized variables

[Richard Stallman]

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I think people have extended setf in questionable ways,
allowing arithmetic and comparisons in the first argument.

I think I understand what (setq (logand x 7) NNN) does, but I think it
pushes the meaning of setf in a way that we should refrain from.

You could equally well define (setq (+ x 5) NNN), but why support
either of them?

What about (setq (+ x y) NNN) -- should that set x, or y?
Or both?  It could do (setq x 0 y NNN), or (setq x NNN y 0),
or various other things.

I don't think that eq in the first argument is coherent at all.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)