CLtL2 is not the spec for ANSI CL. The spec was published a bit later and is a different document. The actual spec for ANSI CL is basically almost the same as

CLtL2 is not the spec for ANSI CL. The spec was published a bit later and is a different document. The actual spec for ANSI CL is basically almost the same as this document : https://franz.com/support/documentation/cl-ansi-standard-draft-w-sidebar.pdf https://franz.com/support/documentation/cl-ansi-standard-dra... ANSI CL is a spec of the language. Programs like Maxima use a lot of features not covered by the language specification and Maxima has been written over a long time and has to deal with changing languages, operating systems and implementations, too. For example the Common Lisp standard does not say anything about how an executable can be created. Maxima surely want s to do that. There are mow also libraries, which provide common interfaces for a bunch of general cases, though.