On Mon, Nov 27, 2023, 9:44 PM Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

>
>   > > In particular, what is the reason for the period and inner
>   > > parenthsses?  Why doesn't the code say this?
>
>
>   > > >          > (`(,hookfun ,start ,end ,collection . ,plist)
>
>   > I would think the author is simply emphasizing that [perse is] parsing
> an
>   > entity in an association list for which hookfun is a key.
>
> You may well be right about per intensions, and it is possible that a
> person who already fully understands what this code is doing would
> have realized that immediately.
>
> But a person who is just starting to look at this code, and reads that
> function first, is likely to be impeded in starting to reach that sort
> of understanding.
>

I have to respectfully disagree - dotted pair notation is a pretty
fundamental part of LISP syntax, regardless of dialect.  There's no reason
I'm aware of (for human-written code) for a dotted pair to have a list in
the CDR unless the author is emphasizing the pair as being an entry in an
association list.

Lynn