Subject: Re: multiple-values and `let'
From: Erik Naggum <clerik@naggum.no>
Date: 1998/07/28
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3110585062383254@naggum.no>

* Kent M Pitman
| There was an alternate "evolutionary path" in the design that was killed
| off probably because it just came too late, and it looked like this:
|   (let (((list a b) '(1 2))) (list b a)) => (2 1)
| To which you might say "ick" (which may also be why it died), but
| consider that it was more like SETF.  The defmacro-style destructuring
| could not support abstractions like the setf-style one could. Consider:
|   (let ((`(,a ,b) '(1 2))) (cons a b))
| OR
|  (defmacro make-foo (x y) `(,x ,y))
|  (defun frob-foo (the-foo)
|     (let (((make-foo a b) the-foo)) (make-foo b a)))
|  where  I don't know the expansion of make-foo (but the compiler does).
| OR
|  (let (((values q r) (truncate x y))) (list q r))
| which is the one you were asking about.

  there appears to have been several experiments with LET some years ago,
  but not very much of it seems to have survived.  in addition to Marco
  Antoniotti's LETBIND, I came across many versions of LETF about the same
  time (1994-10).  LETF binds places like SETF.  although various versions
  of LETF float around, I haven't found one that does multiple values right
  and the version I hacked to handle it doesn't bind new variables, it only
  deals with existing bindings.  that may or may not be the right thing, of
  course.  is there a "definitive" LETF somewhere?

#:Erik
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