From ... From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: A lisp question Date: 1998/04/13 Message-ID: <3101486360608893@naggum.no>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 343693997 References: <6gt2lj$1dl@fridge.shore.net> mail-copies-to: never Organization: Naggum Software; +47 8800 8879; http://www.naggum.no Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp * Kent M Pitman | ... where again some might prefer to hae written instead of | (list 'add (list 'quote x) (list 'quote y)) | the more perspicuous: | `(add ',x ',y) | But that depends on personal style and your intent to later side-effect; | the result of backquote is not something you may later modify. no? I'm aware that _quoted_ structures may be constants, but backquoted lists and vectors always appeared me to be required guaranteed fresh, insofar as structure was not specifically shared with `,.'. according to the definition in 2.4.6 Backquote in the standard, it does indeed appear that only in the case of ,. will list structured be shared, and otherwise not. in other words, I view backquote as a list _constructor_. is this really unwarranted? #:Erik -- religious cult update in light of new scientific discoveries: "when we cannot go to the comet, the comet must come to us."