From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Pascal J. Bourguignon" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: why are there [v e c t o r s] in Lisp? Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 02:45:10 +0200 Organization: Informatimago Message-ID: <87mvvfadpl.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1445215833 8752 80.91.229.3 (19 Oct 2015 00:50:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 00:50:33 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Oct 19 02:50:30 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@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 1Znyej-0001g6-JT for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 19 Oct 2015 02:50:29 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:36043 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Znyei-0004hL-Ok for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 18 Oct 2015 20:50:28 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 35 Original-X-Trace: individual.net xJIqZPckMjKp7ha6EpLSlQDuRGslqJKscMWC1KPVFc4BhO2vxd Cancel-Lock: sha1:ZDJlYTg3OGIwYjljNTZmYTlhMjg5NGE5OTA5ODRlYzQ2N2JlNzdmYw== sha1:SEE+ppy0nl3CjBY9TIJOgAKm/kM= Face: iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADAAAAAwAQMAAABtzGvEAAAABlBMVEUAAAD///+l2Z/dAAAA oElEQVR4nK3OsRHCMAwF0O8YQufUNIQRGIAja9CxSA55AxZgFO4coMgYrEDDQZWPIlNAjwq9 033pbOBPtbXuB6PKNBn5gZkhGa86Z4x2wE67O+06WxGD/HCOGR0deY3f9Ijwwt7rNGNf6Oac l/GuZTF1wFGKiYYHKSFAkjIo1b6sCYS1sVmFhhhahKQssRjRT90ITWUk6vvK3RsPGs+M1RuR mV+hO/VvFAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg== X-Accept-Language: fr, es, en User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:215464 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:107748 Archived-At: Robert Thorpe writes: > Emanuel Berg writes: >> 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. > > There's one thing that Pascal didn't mention directly.... In some cases > having literal syntax in Lisp is more important than in other > languages. In Lisp we have the function "read" which can read in > anything that has a read syntax. Let's say you have a program that has > an data file format. That file can be stored using "print" and > read-back using "read". For example, configuration could be stored as a > list. That list could contain other lists, strings and vectors. Read > and print eliminate the need to write a parser. As a side-effect they > may make the file human readable. That makes having a vector or array > syntax more useful. Let's say the program is a CAD package and it's > storing a 3D model. That would use a lot of arrays. If Lisp had no > literal array syntax then lists would have to be used, then converted to > arrays later. That could be very inefficient for large models. Indeed, and this is why there are reader macros, print-object, (and also make-load-form and make-load-form-saving-slots) in CL: the language doesn't provide a reader syntax for all its data types because there aren't enough characters in the standard character set ;-) but it provides the user to define its own reader syntaxes, for predefined lisp classes and for user defined lisp classes. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ “The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.” -- Carl Bass CEO Autodesk