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From: tmb@ai.mit.edu (Thomas M. Breuel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme
Subject: Re: Keywords do not apply
Message-ID: <TMB.91May3225649@volterra.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 4 May 91 02:56:49 GMT
References: <9105021642.aa12771@mc.lcs.mit.edu>
	<ALAN.91May2223341@august.ai.mit.edu>
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Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
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In-reply-to: alan@ai.mit.edu's message of 3 May 91 02:33:41 GMT


      If  you want  to argue  that AND  is not  a function,  then I  disagree.

   Well, as the language is currently defined, AND is -not- a function.  It is
   a keyword just like LAMBDA (hence my example).  You really can't disagree
   with that, it's just a fact.  You -can- argue that AND was not a good name
   for that keyword.  You -can- argue that the Boolean function that computes
   the conjunction of its arguments should be provided as a primitive.

Other functional languages call these keywords ANDALSO and ORELSE.
It might be worth considering changing the names of the AND and OR
keywords in Scheme as well to eliminate this constant source of
confusion and arguments.