From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Dmitry Gutov Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: /srv/bzr/emacs/trunk r112347: *doc/lispintro/emacs-lisp-intro.texi (defcustom, defun, simplified-beginning-of-buffer, defvar, Building Robots, Review, save-excursion): `defun' and `defcustom' are now macros rather thanspecial forms. (Bug#13853) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 05:47:36 +0400 Message-ID: <87y5cb2v5z.fsf@yandex.ru> References: <87obd8rnk1.fsf@yandex.ru> <51741E72.8030204@yandex.ru> <8738uj22gl.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1366595275 16025 80.91.229.3 (22 Apr 2013 01:47:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 01:47:55 +0000 (UTC) Cc: 'xfq' , Drew Adams , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Apr 22 03:47:59 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1UU5rK-0002K1-Ex for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 22 Apr 2013 03:47:58 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42943 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UU5rK-0005XP-4t for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:47:58 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:48770) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UU5rD-0005WQ-Df for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:47:55 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UU5r6-0008Gf-TF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:47:51 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-lb0-f174.google.com ([209.85.217.174]:37627) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UU5r6-0008GT-LP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:47:44 -0400 Original-Received: by mail-lb0-f174.google.com with SMTP id s10so5090268lbi.5 for ; Sun, 21 Apr 2013 18:47:43 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=x-received:sender:from:to:cc:subject:references:date:in-reply-to :message-id:user-agent:mime-version:content-type:x-antivirus :x-antivirus-status; bh=nO9hsZs+71yV6C/P3CR1Z6U6Dq5wlNjFZVlT0p/LWU4=; b=nTe+DtM5rNyW0yfgkcvHjwCvDlePjfVj2Ptw6+S1FghyzklEM9Ex6XupZlUHiJlFwL sgqTvKWzGX7M1qh9I0rWcxM4sh1S5V/x60m+tUT4k6cCqJX+ekLyZy9RXY0qP4A5BCje cZQSRFmstsw8bl5Xj2Xi9ZeYEJq6FHh10UFRu9E38tlEfWksbq5rwqrUIaU8AscxBxWX awIwVjcKhFlfiJu2UJQ2qH+wuBkLbRn3o1ZQOVTUrM3kVtjoHrCL9HEHcuLlYovPh8f7 CoiCMrdxxa1sbvD5iLmuSyLLPJ8kIze2vsSPXZnlxQFN4s/minbizDMKRSOicx9hssPI 0mvQ== X-Received: by 10.112.139.102 with SMTP id qx6mr11984379lbb.99.1366595263417; Sun, 21 Apr 2013 18:47:43 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from SOL ([178.252.98.87]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id x9sm9652663lbi.15.2013.04.21.18.47.41 (version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Sun, 21 Apr 2013 18:47:42 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <8738uj22gl.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> (Stephen J. Turnbull's message of "Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:55:22 +0900") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3.50 (windows-nt) X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 130421-1, 21.04.2013), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 209.85.217.174 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:159100 Archived-At: "Stephen J. Turnbull" writes: > Dmitry Gutov writes: > > > http://www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/Special-Forms.html starts with: > > > > "Special forms are those expressions in the Lisp language which do not > > follow normal rules for evaluation. > > This is much broader than common usage, though, since it explicitly > includes macros. > > In Commmon Lisp, which has a very narrow (extensional) definition of > "special form"[1], it seems to me the intent of the definition is to > describe those features of the language which are "unfunctional". Ah, I see now. The definition is on the separate page, and there it says that a special form != macro form, and the car of a special form must be a special operator (from the predefined list): http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/26_glo_s.htm#special_form So at least that spec agrees with the narrow definition, as well as with `special-form-p' implementation (like Drew mentioned). CLTL 2nd Edition, though, allows implementing special forms as macros: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/cltl/clm/node59.html and that's what happened to `defun' between Emacs 24.2 and 24.3, when its implementation moved from C to Elisp. I think it would make sense to still consider `defun' a special form, despite the implementation change. > > I dunno, calling anything that can be used as a car of an evaluatable > > sexp a "function" makes sense in general context. > > But there's a reason to avoid that usage where possible. In Lisp, > functions are "funcall-able", while special operators and macros are > not. This makes functions "first class" objects in a way that special > operators and macros are not. Sure, I just meant that the usage of "function" in the introduction makes enough sense, despite the lack of precision. > Footnotes: > [1] http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/03_ababa.htm#clspecialops