Re: no empty (zero) string predicate in Elisp

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

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> I do wonder, why you'd rather write (empty-string-p
> foo) instead of (equal "" foo) or (string= "" foo)
> ... It's longer

I don't mind typing. It is one of my favorite
activities (in very stiff competition), especially
when it only involves common words with chars that are
close and super-fast to type: 'empty-string-p' is
definitely more pleasant to type (and read) than
'string= ""' whereas 'equal ""' should be about
"equally" pleasant to type, but still less so to read.

> slower

If that is true, which I suppose it is because it
requires an extra function call, the difference should
be close to infinitely small. I don't consider such
quantities. Actually, I don't consider speed at all
when I write Elisp. (But I never did any one big
project that could gain from optimization, either.
Still, I don't think I write slow code, in general.)

When I told the other guy the other day that
(make-string 10 ? ) is better than `dotimes' and
(insert " ") 10 times, there I focus on the code
rather than the speed - but those two (?) ways of
thinking should work to each other's advantage
most often.

> not higher-level either

I don't know the scientific definition of "high-level"
- or how it applies to these three Elisp functions.

The reason I want a binary operator is that it is more
intuitive: it refects my way of thinking - "is the
string empty?" vs. "is the string equal to another
string that is empty?" - also, because a binary
operator reduces the number of data items in the code
(with one, the empty string).

In general, I don't want the same function to be
spelled out over and over to do the same thing -
instead, I want it factored out, named, and invoked
with a "minimal", that is, sufficient, interface.

-- 
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http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573