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From: muehle@ssc-vax.UUCP (Eric Muehle)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: FUNCALL question
Message-ID: <3156@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 2 Feb 90 18:53:54 GMT
References: <3277@accuvax.nwu.edu> <1990Jan28.175437.19293@hellgate.utah.edu> <1666@skye.ed.ac.uk> <387@forsight.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics, Seattle WA
Lines: 32
In-reply-to: gat@robotics.Jpl.Nasa.Gov's message of 2 Feb 90 01:04:13 GMT


In article <387@forsight.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> gat@robotics.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Erann Gat) writes:

   I stand corrected, and I apologize for my careless use of the terms
   symbol-value and symbol-function.  Nevertheless, I stand by the 
   assertion that identifiers in Common Lisp, be they local or global,
   have two bindings, a value binding and a function binding, and that
   this is the reason for the existence of an explicit FUNCALL function,
                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   that is, to enable one to call a function stored in an identifier's
   value slot.

   I also reaffirm my position that multiple bindings cause a great deal of
   confusion!

   -Erann

What about this:

(funcall #'(lambda (x) (1+ x)) 10)

I am passing a function to FUNCALL, not an identifier.  Being able to
call *functions* is the reason for the existence of FUNCALL.  If there 
was no FUNCALL then you can kiss all of your :test, :key, and any other
keywords that expects a FUNCTION for an argument goodbye.

ERIC MUEHLE

-- 
Eric Muehle            (require :standard-disclaimers)
Boeing Aerospace and Electronics  usenet: {world}!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!muehle
Seattle, WA               arpanet: ssc-vax!muehle@beaver.cs.washington.edu