Pascal J. Bourguignon <pjb@informatimago.com> wrote:
+---------------
| awhite <spudboy@iinet.net.au> writes:
| > Rob Warnock wrote:
| >> Plus, it would improve improve portability, since the above is
| >> almost as easy to type as (APPLY #'+ NUMBER-LIST), and would
| >> thus discourage that latter, unsafe-for-portability practice.
| >
| > how is (APPLY #'+ NUMBER-LIST) unportable? To my novice eyes
| > it looks very elegant.
| 
| Because of call-arguments-list.  The portable form is:
| 
| (if (< (length number-list) call-arguments-limit)
|     (apply (function +) number-list)
|     (reduce (function +) number-list))
+---------------

Yup. What Pascal said...  ;-}

That's why I keep suggesting[1] that slightly-enhanced CL:REDUCE.


-Rob

[1] Well, A quick search shows that I've only suggested it about
    four times (1998, 2003, 2004, 2008). Note that previously I
    suggested that the new keyword be called :MAX-ARGS rather
    than :MAX-ARITY -- I have no clue why I went with the latter
    this time. Doing an APROPOS in CMUCL suggests that :MAX-ARGS
    would probably be a better choice.

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
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