Re: why are there [v e c t o r s] in Lisp?

[Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>]

"Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com>
writes:

> And even lisp, for example, doesn't have a literal
> syntax for a lot of lisp data type, such as hash
> tables or CLOS objects. I mentionned emacs lisp
> buffers, but a lot of emacs editing data structures
> don't have any literal syntax.

Most likely the need for such syntax is proportional
to the frequence by which the feature is used.
Interestingly this is how this whole thread started.
I thought the vectors of Lisp were for Linear algebra
and the special syntax stroke me as very uncalled for
and out of place, ~equivalent to bash or zsh having
a special char to denote the imaginary unit of complex
numbers! Now that I know it isn't so I don't think the
syntax is bad. Actually, I'm curious about CL and
using the industrial Lisps to do "real" programs,
where types, data structures, memory usage, come to
play once again. That was always present in C and C++
but all this Elisping has made them wane. It is
probably a good thing, at least in the setting of
Emacs and how I and most people (I think) use it.
But it is always interesting to do new things. One can
dream...

-- 
underground experts united
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