Re: Sharp--quote [was: url-retrieve fails on most HTTPS sites]

[Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>]

t wrote:

> One of the things is that, if the compiler knows
> you're going for the function definition, it can
> warn you if it "knows" this to be unbound in the
> relevant context.

3rd time? :)

> It might also eliminate check code if it knows that
> value to be present (or even use the value
> directly).

How does this relate to #' or no #'?

>> BTW how does _Lisp_ know what is refered to? [...]
>
> Syntactical context: if you say
>
>   (foo 1 2 3)
>
> it knows it has to look up things in the variable's
> function cell, whereas in
>
>   (+ 1 2 foo 3)

OK!

> As usually, it takes some familiarity. But if
> I see, in the middle of something

No, I've used it (sharp quote) a lot, no less than
413 times! But if I 'grep -v' the three most frequent
settings, i.e. "key", "hook", and "alias", only
47 remains...

>     (mumble 1 2 #'foo 5)
>
> ... then I /know/ "aah, foo is being passed as
>
> a function". Whereas if I see
>
>   (mumble 1 2 'foo 5)
>
> ... then I just don't know. It might be used as
> a function, as a symbol... whatever.

Well, if you give it a better name than "foo" then it
is still pretty clear. But OK, that's true, +1

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