From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: proposal to make null string handling more emacs-y Date: Tue, 01 May 2012 15:01:46 -0700 Organization: Stonehenge Consulting Services; Portland, Oregon, USA Message-ID: <8662cfmugl.fsf@red.stonehenge.com> References: <87k414s4t0.fsf@catnip.gol.com> <877gx4ymj2.fsf@lifelogs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1335909729 30317 80.91.229.3 (1 May 2012 22:02:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 22:02:09 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed May 02 00:02:08 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@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 1SPL95-0003HN-UO for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 02 May 2012 00:02:08 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35075 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SPL95-0005z1-7R for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 01 May 2012 18:02:07 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:59785) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SPL92-0005yS-Fh for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 May 2012 18:02:05 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SPL90-0003Gw-LC for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 May 2012 18:02:04 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:49448) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SPL90-0003Gr-EL for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 May 2012 18:02:02 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SPL8w-0003Ca-FG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 02 May 2012 00:01:58 +0200 Original-Received: from red.stonehenge.com ([208.79.95.2]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 02 May 2012 00:01:58 +0200 Original-Received: from merlyn by red.stonehenge.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 02 May 2012 00:01:58 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 14 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: red.stonehenge.com x-mayan-date: Long count = 12.19.19.6.6; tzolkin = 4 Cimi; haab = 9 Uo User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.4 (berkeley-unix) Cancel-Lock: sha1:rqb8In8DlDcYRo/AU8CzraRV7vw= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:150195 Archived-At: >>>>> "Ted" == Ted Zlatanov writes: Ted> So it makes sense to me that an empty string would be more like a Ted> 0-length vector. This is a painful area in Perl[1], which treats undef Ted> *and* several strings as equivalent in a boolean context. I think it Ted> would be painful in Emacs Lisp too. Seconded. -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See http://methodsandmessages.posterous.com/ for Smalltalk discussion