What is the reason for the irregularity of function and macro names
and argument order in common lisp? Some predicates having a p and the
end and some not, some functions taking lists first and some last. I'm
not trolling, but I'd genuinely like to know this.
+ "Justin Paston-Cooper" <·······@gmail.com>:
| What is the reason for the irregularity of function and macro names
| and argument order in common lisp? Some predicates having a p and the
| end and some not, some functions taking lists first and some last. I'm
| not trolling, but I'd genuinely like to know this.
In one word, history. Lisp evolved, it wasn't designed. Well, that's
not entirely true: Rather, it had multiple designers with somewhat
different views of what was reasonable. By the time the Common Lisp
standard happened, it was too late to make naming and other
conventions more uniform. It would have been too costly in terms of
the necessary rewriting of programs and implementations.
--
* Harald Hanche-Olsen <URL:http://www.math.ntnu.no/~hanche/>
- It is undesirable to believe a proposition
when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.
-- Bertrand Russell
On Sun, 18 Mar 2007 12:18:19 +0100, Harald Hanche-Olsen
<······@math.ntnu.no> wrote:
> + "Justin Paston-Cooper" <·······@gmail.com>:
>
> | What is the reason for the irregularity of function and macro names
> | and argument order in common lisp? Some predicates having a p and the
> | end and some not, some functions taking lists first and some last. I'm
> | not trolling, but I'd genuinely like to know this.
>
> In one word, history. Lisp evolved, it wasn't designed. Well, that's
> not entirely true: Rather, it had multiple designers with somewhat
> different views of what was reasonable. By the time the Common Lisp
> standard happened, it was too late to make naming and other
> conventions more uniform. It would have been too costly in terms of
> the necessary rewriting of programs and implementations.
>
That being said it is remarkable how well the various functions fit
together.
This is where I see the main advantage over most other languages.
But you need a couple of years under your belt to really appreciate it.
--
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On 2007-03-18 10:29:44 +0000, "Justin Paston-Cooper" <·······@gmail.com> said:
> What is the reason for the irregularity of function and macro names
> and argument order in common lisp? Some predicates having a p and the
> end and some not, some functions taking lists first and some last. I'm
> not trolling, but I'd genuinely like to know this.
What is the reason for the irregularity of English?