Subject: Re: Lisp & SICP From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 2000/05/15 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3167404914296510@naggum.no> * Chuck Fry | Maybe I'm ignorant. It seems to me that Scheme has an implicit | funcall. To recap: Andrew Cooke said Scheme didn't need _apply_. That's bogus -- Scheme doesn't "need" funcall because of its "single namespace" mistake. However, the reduced need for funcall didn't arise because of the reduction of namespaces -- it makes sense to retain this mechanism even if you have only one namespace. I don't think an implicit funcall is anything but a great loss, and certainly do _not_ think it's a feature. I think it makes code harder to read and a lot messier by virtue of crowding _my_ brain's namespace (which matters more to me than the compiler's). Actually, I think the missing funcall is just one more of Scheme's many, many misguided shots at a pointless notion of "elegance by taking away". #:Erik -- If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations.