Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!eliot
From: eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Another Lucid Question
Message-ID: <3384@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 3 Aug 88 19:13:37 GMT
Reply-To: eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman)
Distribution: na
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 27

Many thanks to all those who answered my query about the lucid start-up
file. The conclusion was that Lucid looks for a file called lisp-init.lisp.

My next question is this: how can I access the definition of an
interpreted function? In KCl #'foo results in (lambda-block foo ...)
which I can then treat as a list. But in Lucid I get #<intrepreted-function
FOO ... (and then its address)>, which can't be treated as a list. How do
I make the sharp-sign go away? I don't want it, and I don't see what it's
supposed to be doing except cluttering up the definition and preventing
it from being pretty-printed.

I would like to note here, for future lisp developers, the following. I am
not a lisp developer, merely one of that apparently very small set of people
who use lisp as their preferred language. I've always found that looking
at the source code is essential to understanding how a lisp works. Because
Lucid has a theory about trade-secrets I find that they've succeeded in
producing something that amounts to a vast unpenetrable program. Their manual
costs several hundreds of dollars and we have two copies in this university
which are no allowed to circulate. Lucid has no online documentation, and
APROPOS is generally the only way that I have of guessing what a function
might be called, or what arguments it takes, and even then I usually have
to rely on guesswork or intuition. 

I feel that lisp ought to be wide enough open so that I can see exactly
what functions like DEFUN are doing, how the information is stored, etc.
I really resent the lucid black-box approach. Lucid is anything but lucid.
Franz is lucid. KCl is lucid. Lucid is opaque.