From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
To: Pip Cet <pipcet@gmail.com>
Cc: 40968@debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#40968: 28.0.50; (apply nil)
Date: Wed, 6 May 2020 11:28:49 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CADwFkmmwcunMQG12Rt_pG3ztCOjxWRj5MtcvP4TWVU1Hoq4gAw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAOqdjBe+UiPTUSV_nC7ZLp+jNG7D6UhrrLTw60Jqn6wpCpMYKg@mail.gmail.com>
Pip Cet <pipcet@gmail.com> writes:
> Is the function signature relevant for anything but eldoc?
Besides the docstring, the manual documents it. The suggested form is
unusual and makes it harder to understand, IMHO.
>> apply is fundamental to Lisp, and has been defined like this for a
>> long time.
>
> I don't know about that. Anything but the two-argument form of apply
> strikes me as rather dialect-dependent, but I may be wrong.
If I understand correctly, you propose a three argument form:
(apply FUNCTION ARGUMENT &rest ARGUMENTS)
This is what I find unusual. It should really be either
(apply FUNCTION &rest ARGUMENTS)
or
(apply FUNCTION ARGUMENTS)
But since we already have the former, we are better to stick with
that.
Maybe there's a case to be made for a syntactic alternative to "&rest"
which disallows nil, which I guess is the issue here? But we can also
just signal an error in this case.
Racket does the latter, as one data point:
> (define foo (lambda () 1))
> (apply foo nil)
; nil: undefined;
; cannot reference an identifier before its definition
; in module: top-level
; [,bt for context]
BTW, I don't see a big difference conceptually between '&rest
ARGUMENTS' and 'ARGUMENTS'. The former is just syntactic sugar,
right?
>> See the definition of "The Universal S-Function apply" in
>> John McCarthy's paper: [1]
>>
>> apply[f;args] =eval[cons[f;appq[args]];NIL],
>
> I must admit I don't know how appq is defined.
My point is mainly that it has two arguments: f and args.
Best regards,
Stefan Kangas
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-05-06 15:28 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 44+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-04-29 18:26 bug#40968: 28.0.50; (apply nil) Pip Cet
2020-04-29 18:35 ` Pip Cet
2020-05-06 1:51 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-06 7:26 ` Pip Cet
2020-05-06 11:24 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-06 11:49 ` Pip Cet
2020-05-06 13:02 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-06 13:55 ` Pip Cet
2020-05-06 15:28 ` Stefan Kangas [this message]
2020-05-06 18:06 ` Pip Cet
2020-05-06 19:26 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-06 14:03 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-06 17:54 ` Pip Cet
2020-05-06 18:09 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-06 18:00 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-06 18:28 ` Noam Postavsky
2020-05-06 19:17 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-06 19:21 ` Pip Cet
2020-05-06 19:28 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-07 2:27 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-06 17:46 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-06 20:32 ` Phil Sainty
2020-05-06 21:35 ` Drew Adams
2020-09-29 3:00 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-06 10:18 ` Mattias Engdegård
2020-05-06 10:45 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-06 10:57 ` Andreas Schwab
2020-05-06 11:25 ` Pip Cet
2020-05-06 11:49 ` Mattias Engdegård
2020-05-06 18:42 ` Mattias Engdegård
2020-05-07 6:53 ` Pip Cet
2020-05-07 9:11 ` Mattias Engdegård
2020-05-07 11:54 ` Noam Postavsky
2020-05-07 11:58 ` Pip Cet
2020-05-07 12:20 ` Noam Postavsky
2020-05-07 13:53 ` Mattias Engdegård
2020-06-02 7:36 ` Pip Cet
2020-06-02 16:32 ` Drew Adams
2020-06-02 16:43 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-06-02 16:36 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-09-27 15:01 ` Lars Ingebrigtsen
2020-09-27 19:28 ` Drew Adams
[not found] <<CC40D602-5027-40A7-9BAB-1AADC9E4BDAE@acm.org>
[not found] ` <<CAOqdjBfj6AExvem5WWLfMiw4fEsY-xUUmosV+fj9CaPgWM16ag@mail.gmail.com>
[not found] ` <<ECEC9424-919F-4364-9294-381C8751921A@acm.org>
[not found] ` <<874kssm04d.fsf@gmail.com>
[not found] ` <<6ADF0807-7EBD-4054-8579-4D9AD3065D51@acm.org>
[not found] ` <<CAOqdjBdQne3RFTjg4hej40L5aeBx6vbGp6nXKx2TwPkLPf5NPw@mail.gmail.com>
[not found] ` <<fabfb1fd-4da1-4e72-90c9-333532011a48@default>
[not found] ` <<83pnahctad.fsf@gnu.org>
2020-06-02 17:10 ` Drew Adams
2020-06-02 18:41 ` Pip Cet
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