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From: alms@cambridge.apple.com (Andrew L. M. Shalit)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Problem with (apply #'or <list>)? (cl 3.0.1)
Message-ID: <ALMS.91Feb22150340@ministry.cambridge.apple.com>
Date: 22 Feb 91 20:03:40 GMT
References: <1991Feb15.065508.28609@cs.columbia.edu>
	<47946.27c2d8d3@ccvax.ucd.ie>
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In-reply-to: eweb@ccvax.ucd.ie's message of 20 Feb 91 20:15:15 GMT

In article <47946.27c2d8d3@ccvax.ucd.ie> eweb@ccvax.ucd.ie writes:

   As for the reason why special forms cannot be FUNCALLed or APPLYe, I reckon
   it has to do with the fact that it is unknown which (if any) args are to 
   be evaluated or not.

Macros and special forms can be thought of extensions to the compiler.
Once you have compiled code, the macros don't need to exist.  In contrast,
functions are objects, whic exist at run time.  FUNCALL and APPLY operate
on these run-time objects.
--