Subject: Re: source access vs dynamism From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1999/09/04 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3145425004322182@naggum.no> * William Tanksley | Fortunately, the purpose of this document wasn't to understand Lisp, but | rather to explain and compare it. huh? if one end tries to explain and compare, what other than understand should the other end try to do? I must have missed something. | I can't bring myself to understand why anyone objects to snapping off the | word "library" when referring to a collection of functions. Would you | prefer "magazine" or "clip"? "library" has very specific connotations and annotations in programming language, none of which are applicable to Common Lisp. the whole concept is very, very different from what we do in Lisp. I'd expect "library" to be the equivalent of "package" in Common Lisp. since there is but one standard package, which holds the entire language, there _is_ no library. | Read "On Lisp"; it's a magnificent book. I know. I read it when it came out. | The core problem is unintentional variable capture. well, the problem with hygienic macros is that you can't have intentional capture. however, the problem is so much more severe in Scheme that many are actually afraid of macros because of it. this is not something I say because I don't like Scheme. I don't like Scheme because it has this and many other problems that Common Lisp doesn't have, mainly because it did retain the two namespaces that Scheme discarded. I've been bothered by the same problem that Scheme has in other languages, too, like C. it's just stupid to have one namespace: a function can be called and variables can't and that's a sufficiently fundamental difference that I think two namespaces fall out naturally, and I have created the distinction when I needed to design my own languages. nobody seems to think it's a problem. except Scheme people. so I'd say the _severity_ of the macro problem is an artifact of the one namespace decision, and that the problem is so easy to curtail otherwise that the problem is not perceived as a problem that needs solving. #:Erik -- save the children: just say NO to sex with pro-lifers