Subject: Re: function and lambda, again
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 19:40:55 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3224432463558449@naggum.net>

* Kent M Pitman <pitman@world.std.com>
| This is a great example for those who implement font locking to
| understand the importance of getting things right.  People come to depend
| on shifts or non-shifts of color to tell them something, and if the
| shifting algorithm isn't completely accurate, you get newbies asking all
| kinds of confused questions.  Or worse, you get people just assuming they
| shouldn't do the thing that aggravates the bug and building up a whole
| religion around it, either because they are confused or because they know
| better but can't bear the colors not working right.

  I note in passing that the same applies to editor symbol completion in a
  language that has different namespace for symbols depending on whether
  they follow a left paren or not.  <pause for effect>  Experienced Lispers
  recognize that this is All Wrong -- this is not a good criterion for
  functionhood at all, yet it is precisely what Emacs Lisp does in all Lisp
  modes, and a bug that has spread to other Lisp modes, too.

///
-- 
  In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none.
  In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.