[hunchentoot-devel] Request methods suffixed with * -- not backwards compatible?

[Edi Weitz]

On Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:13:24 +0530, Chaitanya Gupta <mail at chaitanyagupta.com> wrote:

> Still, I can't really see what will be gained by exporting the
> request(or reply) accessors. If you can explain what you have in
> mind when you say a clearer CLOS-based model, and how it will help,
> that will be great.

The idea is that all the relevant objects (request, replies, servers)
are CLOS objects (which is already the case) and exported (which isn't
the case now) so that you can subclass them and write your own methods
which override the default behaviour.  This is not possible with
functions like, say, the current REQUEST-METHOD that only have
optional parameters.  In the future, REQUEST-METHOD (with a required
parameter) will be a generic function while REQUEST-METHOD* (with an
optional parameter like now) will just be a "convenience layer", if
you so will.  We thought about naming the generic function
REQUEST-REQUEST-METHOD or something like that, but all the
alternatives we came up with sounded dumb.  I think it's better to use
the "real" names (the ones derived from the RFCs or legacy usage) for
the "real" functions.

Edi.