Standard Common Lisp functions implemented using generic functions.

generic-cl

# GENERIC-CL

GENERIC-CL provides a generic function wrapper over various functions
in the Common Lisp standard, such as equality predicates and sequence
operations. The goal of this wrapper is to provide a standard
interface to common operations, such as testing for the equality of
two objects, which is extensible to user-defined types.

## Example

In Common lisp you have a number of different equality comparison
functions for different object types. Worse still you have to invent a
new name for the comparison functions for each of your own object
types.

**Standard Common Lisp:**

```lisp
(eq 'a x)           ;; Symbols
(= 1 2)             ;; Numbers
(equal '(1 2 3) x)  ;; Lists
(equal "hello" y)   ;; Strings
(equalp #(1 2 3) z) ;; Arrays

(foo-equal x y)     ;; Instances of class foo
```

In GENERIC-CL there is a single equality predicate `=` which can be
used on objects of any builtin type. Since it's implemented using
generic functions, it can be extended with methods for user-defined
classes and structures.

**Using GENERIC-CL:**

```lisp
(= 'a x)       ;; Symbols
(= 1 2)        ;; Numbers
(= '(1 2 3) x) ;; Lists
(= "hello" y)  ;; Strings
(= #(1 2 3) z) ;; Arrays

(= x y)        ;; Instances of class foo
```

GENERIC-CL also provides generic interfaces for comparison (`<`, `>`,
...) functions, copying objects, iteration, sequence operations,
hash-tables capable of storing keys of user defined classes, and many
more.

## Documentation

Full documentation is available online in HTML format at
<https://alex-gutev.github.io/generic-cl/>, and also in AsciiDoc
format in the `doc/` folder.

## Isn't this slow?

Generic functions do carry an additional overhead over ordinary
functions, however this isn't a significant issue for most
applications. 

For those applications where the speed of generic-functions is an
issue, generic function calls can be optimized, using
[static-dispatch](https://github.com/alex-gutev/static-dispatch) on
which this library is built, to be as efficient (and sometimes even
more efficient) as ordinary function calls, when the types of the
arguments are known at compile-time. Check out the
[Optimization](https://alex-gutev.github.io/generic-cl/#gf-optimization)
section for more information.



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