Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Terminology and style (was Re: Question about INTERN)
Message-ID: <4092@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 11 Feb 91 17:36:21 GMT
References: <1991Jan29.055536.1523@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu> <5783@idunno.Princeton.EDU> <4037@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1991Jan30.225106.26561@Think.COM>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 21

In article <1991Jan30.225106.26561@Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
>(when I read (EQUAL ...) it forces me to think about why EQUAL was used,
>whereas EQ is a very simple operation); use SETQ rather than SETF when
>setting variables (again, seeing the more general operator forces the
>reader to stop and think, although I suspect many people out there would
>disagree with me on this particular point, and I sometimes wish the Common
>Lisp designers had had the guts to get rid of SETQ); 

This is good advice, but unfortunately certain widely-used textbooks
do such things as (1) use EQUAL everywhere to avoid explaining the
difference between EQUAL, EQL, and EQ; (2) claim that SETQ (and CAR
and CDR) are "old fashioned" and seldom used.

My question is this: is it really the case that CAR and CDR are
normally replaced by FIRST and REST in current programming practice?
How about COND, for which the claim has also been made?

Theer may be an sociologically interesting process here, one in
which practice is changed by describing it as having changed already
(assuming that programmers who learn Lisp from those texts go on to
program in the style they've been taught).