On Oct 21, 2011, at 4:03 PM, Rich Hickey wrote: > I like nil punning, and find it to be a great source of generalization and > reduction of edge cases overall, while admitting the introduction of edges in > specific cases. I am with Tim in preferring CL's approach over Scheme's, and > will admit to personal bias and a certain comfort level with its (albeit > small) complexity.
Late to this party, but around 1984, George C. Charrette (sp?) wrote a brilliant post to the common lisp mailing list. He told of a dream in which (he said) he'd suddenly realized Scheme was right about everything where it and Common Lisp differed. So, in a white heat of inspiration, he took a relatively simple CL function and rewrote it, step by step, by removing nasty CL-isms like nil punning. Of course, at each step, the function got wordier, more special-case-ey, and (arguably) harder to understand. It was a masterpiece of snark. I've never been able to find it since. If anyone has a copy, I'd love to get one. ----- Brian Marick, Artisanal Labrador Now working at http://path11.com Contract programming in Ruby and Clojure Occasional consulting on Agile -- 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
