From: Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu>
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: why are there [v e c t o r s] in Lisp?
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2015 01:53:04 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <barmar-D2A8D5.01530417102015@88-209-239-213.giganet.hu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: mailman.491.1445056308.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
In article <mailman.491.1445056308.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:
> "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com>
> writes:
>
> >> Why the syntax is there at all is to provide fast
> >> (faster) access to the vector data type which has
> >> other time and space properties than do lists.
> >
> > ABSOLUTELY NOT.
> >
> > For example, in C++ you have vectors and lists, but
> > you don't have any literal syntax for them.
> >
> > You can have fast and slow data structures without
> > having any literal syntax for it.
> >
> > Why do you keep confusing the two concepts?
>
> The original question was why there is a special
> syntax for vectors, even as lists are perfectly fitted
> to be vectors.
>
> The question was not why there are lists AND vectors.
> But that issue is also interesting so that discussion
> wasn't wasted on anyone who read it (perhaps).
>
> As for the syntax, the "literal"
>
> [1 2 3]
>
> is a faster and more readable way than
>
> (vector 1 2 3)
>
> to tell the computer when it should use what, because
> the computer isn't advanced enough to figure this out
> on it own.
Which is similar to the reason why we have literal lists:
'(1 2 3)
when you could just use
(list 1 2 3)
Literals are just a convenience feature. When arrays were added to
MacLisp, they didn't have a literal syntax. Common Lisp added the syntax
#(1 2 3) for them (and a more general syntax for multi-dimensional
arrays). Common Lisp also added a syntax for structure literals.
--
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-10-17 5:53 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 56+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <mailman.428.1444957396.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-16 1:51 ` why are there [v e c t o r s] in Lisp? Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-16 2:31 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-10-16 2:29 ` Random832
2015-10-16 2:51 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-10-16 2:56 ` Random832
2015-10-16 23:30 ` Emanuel Berg
[not found] ` <mailman.482.1445037713.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-17 1:55 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-17 4:47 ` Emanuel Berg
[not found] ` <mailman.494.1445057637.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-17 15:25 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-17 21:12 ` Emanuel Berg
[not found] ` <mailman.519.1445115776.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-18 1:08 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
[not found] ` <mailman.432.1444964227.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-16 3:57 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-16 4:17 ` Random832
[not found] ` <mailman.434.1444970033.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-16 5:16 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
[not found] ` <mailman.429.1444962165.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-16 3:31 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-16 23:46 ` Emanuel Berg
[not found] ` <mailman.483.1445038647.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-17 2:04 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-17 4:40 ` Random832
2015-10-17 5:00 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-10-17 4:40 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-10-17 5:56 ` Barry Margolin
2015-10-17 15:06 ` Emanuel Berg
[not found] ` <mailman.491.1445056308.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-17 5:53 ` Barry Margolin [this message]
2015-10-17 15:16 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-17 21:06 ` Emanuel Berg
[not found] ` <mailman.518.1445115463.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-18 1:07 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-18 12:32 ` Emanuel Berg
[not found] ` <mailman.551.1445171034.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-18 12:55 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-18 14:28 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-10-18 21:17 ` Robert Thorpe
[not found] ` <mailman.557.1445177952.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-18 19:48 ` Barry Margolin
2015-10-18 21:25 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-10-18 21:39 ` Random832
2015-10-19 0:46 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-16 13:32 ` Barry Margolin
2015-10-16 23:47 ` Emanuel Berg
[not found] <mailman.581.1445203060.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-19 0:45 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-16 1:12 Emanuel Berg
2015-10-17 1:11 ` Aurélien Aptel
2015-10-17 4:22 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-10-17 7:58 ` Jude DaShiell
2015-10-19 16:33 ` Nick Dokos
[not found] ` <mailman.490.1445055179.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-17 15:09 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
[not found] ` <mailman.488.1445044303.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-17 2:22 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-17 4:56 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-10-17 5:49 ` Barry Margolin
2015-10-17 15:04 ` Emanuel Berg
[not found] ` <mailman.506.1445093727.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-17 15:20 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-17 15:38 ` Emanuel Berg
[not found] ` <mailman.511.1445095810.7904.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
2015-10-17 16:01 ` Javier
2015-10-17 16:03 ` Javier
2015-10-17 16:34 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-17 21:18 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-10-17 16:15 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
2015-10-17 21:37 ` Emanuel Berg
2015-10-17 15:18 ` Pascal J. Bourguignon
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
List information: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=barmar-D2A8D5.01530417102015@88-209-239-213.giganet.hu \
--to=barmar@alum.mit.edu \
--cc=help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).