From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Barry Margolin Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: why are there [v e c t o r s] in Lisp? Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2015 01:49:40 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: <87oafzpqfj.fsf@debian.uxu> <87lhb2cjy5.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <876126w0t8.fsf@debian.uxu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1445061022 17821 80.91.229.3 (17 Oct 2015 05:50:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2015 05:50:22 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Oct 17 07:50:22 2015 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 1ZnKNo-0003k6-Pz for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 17 Oct 2015 07:50:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57121 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZnKNo-0007yd-3L for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 17 Oct 2015 01:50:20 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.kjsl.com!feeder.erje.net!1.eu.feeder.erje.net!news.albasani.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!barmar.motzarella.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 26 Injection-Info: barmar.motzarella.org; posting-host="2be9e9f5dd9af768b8861af71b85fc28"; logging-data="4607"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/oIWDqUeR79uBmpZ1fwe3+" User-Agent: MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.3b3 (Intel Mac OS X) Cancel-Lock: sha1:ZUXSro8ZiBKhMhGt02JCLW7Bpzc= Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:215412 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:107696 Archived-At: In article <876126w0t8.fsf@debian.uxu>, Emanuel Berg wrote: > "Pascal J. Bourguignon" > writes: > > > The essence of vector is to define a direction and > > a magnitude. Notably for vector spaces without > > a finite basis, V/|V| is still the direction of the > > vector V, intrinsically (every unitary vector is > > a distinct direction). > > Yes, but perhaps what Aurélien Aptel said (vectors in > linear algebra being a tool concept to model just > about anything) is analogous to the vectors of Elisp > being data structures that can hold data for virtually > any purpose? And then, why aren't the Elisp vectors > simply called "arrays" like everywhere else? Traditionally in Lisp, "array" has meant multi-dimensional arrays, while "vector" means 1-dimensional arrays. -- Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***