Subject: Re: Pass by reference
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: 18 Nov 2000 02:15:06 +0000
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3183502506080424@naggum.net>

* Joe Marshall <jrm@content-integrity.com>
| Obviously, but that wouldn't illustrate "Jensen's Device".

  So does it have any uses that sort of, you know, pay off?

  What good is illustrating something with an example that's clearly
  inferior to a much simpler solution?  Given the language feature, it
  _was_ quite clever, however.  Lacking that language feature, it is
  moderately silly to reinvent it just so you can do in very complex
  ways what used to be very simple, at least as the programmer saw it at
  the source code level.

#:Erik
-- 
  ALGORITHM: a procedure for solving a mathematical problem in a finite
  number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation.
  ALGOREISM: a procedure for solving an electoral problem in a finite
  number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation.