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From: Alex <agrambot@gmail.com>
To: Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>
Cc: Mark Oteiza <mvoteiza@udel.edu>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 35c893d 2/2: Move gensym to core Elisp
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 21:48:38 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <874ls7uull.fsf@lylat> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <jwvfubrhivm.fsf-monnier+emacsdiffs@gnu.org> (Stefan Monnier's message of "Tue, 12 Sep 2017 14:28:40 -0400")

Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:

>> It was just simpler to not duplicate the code for such a small
>> historical tidbit.
>
> Damn!  So still no explanation for that weird functionality.
>
>
>         Stefan

According to [1] (page 53), MACLISP didn't have a visible
gensym-counter, and instead used an integer argument to gensym to allow
programs to set an internal counter. According to [2], it was only
decided in 1989 to have *gensym-counter* in CL, so before then having an
integer argument made sense if you wanted to manipulate the gensym
state.

I don't think an integer argument makes much sense when there's a
visible counter available. Checking it only in cl-gensym and not in
gensym is a nice idea, but I wonder if people who use an integer
argument here are the type of people to use `cl' instead of `cl-lib'.

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/MIT/Moon-MACLISP_Reference_Manual-Apr_08_1974.pdf

[2]  https://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/cltl/clm/node110.html




  parent reply	other threads:[~2017-09-13  3:48 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
     [not found] <20170912151313.7686.92637@vcs0.savannah.gnu.org>
     [not found] ` <20170912151315.C449D2087D@vcs0.savannah.gnu.org>
2017-09-12 16:48   ` [Emacs-diffs] master 35c893d 2/2: Move gensym to core Elisp Stefan Monnier
2017-09-12 17:21     ` Mark Oteiza
2017-09-12 17:35       ` Mark Oteiza
2017-09-12 18:28       ` Stefan Monnier
2017-09-12 18:51         ` Mark Oteiza
2017-09-13  3:48         ` Alex [this message]
2017-09-13 12:40           ` Stefan Monnier
2017-09-13 12:50             ` Mark Oteiza
2017-09-28  7:05               ` Alex

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