From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: when you gotta have a variable value for a symbol name Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 01:24:32 +0200 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <87vbqn1wwf.fsf@debian.uxu> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1406157934 9501 80.91.229.3 (23 Jul 2014 23:25:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 23:25:34 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jul 24 01:25:26 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@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 1XA5uV-0002sg-SP for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 24 Jul 2014 01:25:23 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:47413 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XA5uV-000076-Fh for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 23 Jul 2014 19:25:23 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.kjsl.com!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!newsfeed.datemas.de!rt.uk.eu.org!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 39 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: SIvZRMPqRkkTHAHL6NkRuw.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:VVbzLF8Cp8+MMTDTXCfme4cz34A= Mail-Copies-To: never Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:206657 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:98931 Archived-At: "Buchs, Kevin J." writes: > I want to evaluate (kmacro-name-last-macro variable), > where I want the value of "variable" passed as the > symbol name. Despite years of trying, I don't think I > ever really conceptually "got" the distinction > between symbols and variables and that seems to be > critical here. Good question. In books on programming when they mention Lisp in one paragraph they always say it came out of a crazy mind. No, it came out of the push for AI in the US in the 50s (probably with the cold war in mind and everything). I thought that "AI" referred to the data/code blend that can make a function rearrange another function like any other list of data, perhaps swapping a pair of operands around a binary operator and reinsert the modified function in a pool of competing functions, to see what first morphs into a function that can solve some task... And more, the Lisp reliance on the list data structure, that can be nested, and searched, as so much of the AI applications revolve around searching trees according to probability calculations... But they (the books) also usually say Lisp is about "symbolic manipulation". Is that literally manipulating symbols? Drawing on the dynamic/lexical scope discussion the other day, symbols would then be dynamic scope as the function would act on the existing symbol. Variables would be the lexical scope or the traditional programming approach of using variables to build programs (and not the other way around, to build programs to juggle around with symbols). I guess almost all ordinary Elisping isn't anything uncommon like that, just to have Emacs automatize and do things certain ways, nothing fancy from a theory/science point of view. -- underground experts united