On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 10:38 AM, daly <d...@axiom-developer.org> wrote: > If I understand your post correctly you feel that nil should > ONLY represent the concept of a missing value. It should not > represent false and empty.
Yes, you correctly interpreted my post. That is my opinion. > The context of the nil value > completely defines the intended meaning. This is a point I disagree with. The context defines the meaning of nil intended by the person coding that function. It does nothing to ensure that the coder has thought about what the function will do if nil is used with another meaning, and it does nothing to ensure that consumers of that function will use nil in the way the coder intended. I have found this to be a relatively common source of bugs that pass test cases (because test cases are written by the coder who has a specific intention in mind) but show up in the field. > > Having used lisp in many different forms over the last 40 years > I think that the "complecting" of nil to represent all three > concepts is one of the most brilliant aspects of the language. That may be. If so, it undermines one of the messages in the video that complecting=bad. If this particular complection is brilliant, it naturally leads to a lot of deeper questions: When is complecting brilliant rather than bad? How does one tell the difference? -- 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
