Subject: Re: CAR, CADR, etc. vs FIRST, SECOND... (was Re: Please help (syntax problems?)) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1999/02/22 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3128669611030356@naggum.no> * cbarry@2xtreme.net (Christopher R. Barry) | One thing I dislike about using FIRST, SECOND and friends is if you ever | want something like CDADR then your code is kinda - I don't know what the | word I'm looking for is - "inconsistent" will have to do. Using SECOND to | take the CADR of a list and then taking the CDADR of the same list just | doesn't seem to be the most aesthetically pleasing thing to do to me. think of FIRST and SECOND as accessors into the first level of a list. think of CxR as accessors into a tree. if you see (rest (second X)) and think CDADR is a better choice, you may need to think about what you're representing. chances are a structure or class is a better choice than a list, or that destructuring things before proceeding is more legible. #:Erik