From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kevin Rodgers Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Documentation for car and cdr Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 15:30:21 -0700 Message-ID: References: <873bjdmupx.fsf@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1138142021 8149 80.91.229.2 (24 Jan 2006 22:33:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 22:33:41 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jan 24 23:33:38 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1F1WjH-0005Xn-71 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2006 23:33:36 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1F1Wlw-0005WU-P9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:36:20 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1F1WjM-0004eh-NF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:33:40 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1F1WjL-0004e1-N0 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:33:40 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1F1WjL-0004dy-HT for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:33:39 -0500 Original-Received: from [80.91.229.2] (helo=ciao.gmane.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA:32) (Exim 4.52) id 1F1Wgc-0007Ef-L6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2006 17:30:51 -0500 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.43) id 1F1WgV-0004nt-Fb for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Jan 2006 23:30:43 +0100 Original-Received: from 207.167.42.60 ([207.167.42.60]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 24 Jan 2006 23:30:43 +0100 Original-Received: from ihs_4664 by 207.167.42.60 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 24 Jan 2006 23:30:43 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-Lines: 23 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.167.42.60 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.9 (X11/20041105) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en In-Reply-To: <873bjdmupx.fsf@gmail.com> X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:49495 Archived-At: Mario Domenech Goulart wrote: > Saying "car returns the car" and "cdr returns the cdr" doesn't sound > very useful for me if I would like to know what car and cdr do, unless I > knew what "car" and "cdr" mean (then I wouldn't check the > documentation). :-) > > Wouldn't it be better to write something like "Return the first element > of list" and "Return a list containing all but the first element of > list" for car and cdr, respectively? I don't think so, but I know Lisp. > I found this little "issue" when I was trying to show a friend of mine > the self-documenting features of Emacs: "If you don't know what car > means, for example, you can always check the documentation, so you can > find out that car... returns the car of a list...". :-) Maybe he > thought lists can drive. :-) I think it would be useful if the doc string contained a reference to the "Cons Cells" node of the Emacs Lisp manual. -- Kevin Rodgers