[plt-scheme] Question re: PLT object system and CLOS

Matthias writes:
 > (defmethod ...) itself demands an imperative implementation.

This has been bugging me for a long time.  Is there something inherent
to the concept of generic functions that makes this so?  It seems like
there should be a way to implement them without side effects.  I
believe Cecil has lexically scoped methods (or maybe that was just
BeCecil), but I'm not sure how to do that in Scheme without extending
the module system (at least).

--dougorleans at gmail.com