Subject: Re: function and lambda, again From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 19:40:55 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3224432463558449@naggum.net> * Kent M Pitman <pitman@world.std.com> | This is a great example for those who implement font locking to | understand the importance of getting things right. People come to depend | on shifts or non-shifts of color to tell them something, and if the | shifting algorithm isn't completely accurate, you get newbies asking all | kinds of confused questions. Or worse, you get people just assuming they | shouldn't do the thing that aggravates the bug and building up a whole | religion around it, either because they are confused or because they know | better but can't bear the colors not working right. I note in passing that the same applies to editor symbol completion in a language that has different namespace for symbols depending on whether they follow a left paren or not. <pause for effect> Experienced Lispers recognize that this is All Wrong -- this is not a good criterion for functionhood at all, yet it is precisely what Emacs Lisp does in all Lisp modes, and a bug that has spread to other Lisp modes, too. /// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.