> But that is already what the normal copy does.

I think we must be on different mental tracks, then.  I understand a
shallow copy as one that copies only the target object and shares all
the objects it refers to, and a deep copy as one that copies not only
the target object but also all the other objects it references and so
on recursively.

In CL, copy-list (like Scheme's) is a shallow copy, whereas copy-tree
is a deep copy: however, only the pairs are copied, not other objects
to which they refer.

On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 7:39 PM Daniel Ziltener <xxxxxx@lyrion.ch> wrote:
>
>
> On 3/27/26 23:12, John Cowan wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 5:33 PM Daniel Ziltener <xxxxxx@lyrion.ch> wrote:
> >
> >> Not descending into everything means it by definition is not a deep copy.
> > It's a matter of perspective. For the purposes of this SRFI,
> > everything that is not a SRFI 263 object can be treated as atomic,
> > because they contain no slots. Of course this has to be documented.
> But that is already what the normal copy does. In that case, we need a
> better name for the deep-copy method.