> >> But using symbols for something like this is a bit contrived anyway.
Yes, But sometimes it needs contrived examples to get the message. Especially if you have misleading preconceptions. And to me, symbols had always been a way to refer to stuff. And only that. That had to be shaken an is now. (Like the old hastable example: A consistent implementation is returning a constant. Thats slow and doesnt scale, but it's consistent. To me thats been illuminating.) Many thanks to all for the discussion. alux On 18 Mrz., 23:21, Richard Newman <holyg...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> But using symbols for something like this is a bit contrived anyway. > > > Maybe, but I've seen it in other Common Lisp books/tutorials before. > > e.g. I'm sure PAIP was one of them. > > Part of the motivation is that CL symbols always compare with EQ and > EQL, whilst strings are not required to do so: > > cl-user(9): (eq (concatenate 'string "foo" "bar") "foobar") > nil > > This means you can use nice constructs such as CASE with symbols, but > you need to roll your own using string-equal or string= to handle > strings. > > (Using symbols also saves you typing all those double-quote > characters, as well as saving memory and computation during > comparison: symbols are interned, unlike strings.) > > In Clojure (thanks to Java's immutable interned strings) strings > compare efficiently with = just like everything else, so there's less > motivation. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
