From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ted Zlatanov Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: proposal to make null string handling more emacs-y Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:21:53 -0400 Organization: =?utf-8?B?0KLQtdC+0LTQvtGAINCX0LvQsNGC0LDQvdC+0LI=?= @ Cienfuegos Message-ID: <877gx4ymj2.fsf@lifelogs.com> References: <87k414s4t0.fsf@catnip.gol.com> Reply-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1335363267 21701 80.91.229.3 (25 Apr 2012 14:14:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:14:27 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Apr 25 16:14:26 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 1SN2zA-0005vo-EK for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:14:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:58045 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SN2z9-0007gg-P3 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:14:23 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:44520) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SN2xz-0003z1-Mg for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:14:21 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SN2ki-0002ec-6S for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:59:30 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:39602) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SN2kh-0002Zd-MU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:59:28 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SN2AZ-0002ZJ-JV for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:22:07 +0200 Original-Received: from c-76-28-40-19.hsd1.vt.comcast.net ([76.28.40.19]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:22:07 +0200 Original-Received: from tzz by c-76-28-40-19.hsd1.vt.comcast.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:22:07 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Mail-Followup-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-Lines: 27 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: c-76-28-40-19.hsd1.vt.comcast.net User-Agent: Gnus/5.130004 (Ma Gnus v0.4) Emacs/24.1.50 (gnu/linux) X-Face: bd.DQ~'29fIs`T_%O%C\g%6jW)yi[zuz6; d4V0`@y-~$#3P_Ng{@m+e4o<4P'#(_GJQ%TT= D}[Ep*b!\e,fBZ'j_+#"Ps?s2!4H2-Y"sx" Mail-Copies-To: never Cancel-Lock: sha1:6TeIRr6IwGkCNJTt8lhaQwTdfI4= 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:149987 Archived-At: On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:28:59 +0900 Miles Bader wrote: MB> Steve Yegge writes: >> * it's Lispy. Yes, most Lisp dialects got strings wrong, but that >> shouldn't stop us. Strings are just character sequences, and whether >> you like it or not, the nil/empty-list equivalence is part of Emacs's >> soul. Throwing an error on a nil string is a radical departure from >> the core philosophy. MB> That's a pretty dubious claim... I see strings as a vector sequence, not a list sequence. Thus: (null (make-vector 0 "hello")) => nil (null (make-list 0 "hello")) => t So it makes sense to me that an empty string would be more like a 0-length vector. This is a painful area in Perl[1], which treats undef *and* several strings as equivalent in a boolean context. I think it would be painful in Emacs Lisp too. Ted [1] http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=862 and many others