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

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

Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> writes:

> It's curious that you would think that a language
> primarily intended for programming an EDITOR would
> have a feature for linear algebra.

Because of the name! Nothing else.

I've never seen "vector" in programming having this
meaning. In OpenGL (GLSL) there were (is) a vector
type but I thought of that as dealing with
math/graphical vectors, not to store arbitrary data:

    /* https://www.opengl.org/wiki/Data_Type_(GLSL) */
    vec4 someVec;
    someVec.x + someVec.y;
    
But if I *now* may think about it further, it is not
that strange a thought.

Emacs was never a minimalist system so I'm not
surprised to find anything in it. (Or surprised to
think I found something, in this case.)

Also, no matter how useful it (Emacs) might be to
writers, journalists, and basically anyone who thinks,
reads, and writes, I suppose it still has its
stronghold with programmers and science people.
And linear algebra, isn't that the math discipline
which is closest to computer science? (Along with
automata theory and discrete math, perhaps.)

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