Subject: Re: bug#47425: 26.3; `plist-get', `plist-put' and proposed TEST function

From: Richard Stallman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2022 23:33:40 -0400

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CL-style keyword arguments to modify list operations are clunky.
Unless we implement them in an extra-complicated way, they will slow
down the usual case, too.  I understand the motivation for proposing
this change, but let's solve it in a cleaner way that doesn't invite
copying the bad designs of CL.

Here are two ways that occur to me.

* The applications that want to compare property names with `equal'
could canonicalize those names.  For instance, intern the strings
you want to use as property names, perhaps in a special obarray.
Then you can use `plist-get' and `plist-put' on them and get the
results you want.

* Define functions `plist-get-equal' and `plist-put-equal'.
Instead of complicating the definitions of widely used functions `plist-get'
and `plist-put', it will define two new functions that most users won't
need to pay attention to.

-- 
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)