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From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Subject: Re: Lisp & SICP
Date: 2000/05/16
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* Chuck Fry
| So, what I was asking is, how does this differ *semantically* from an
| explicit FUNCALL function, discounting the obvious lack of the syntactic
| marker (the FUNCALL name)?

  Which semantics are we using today?  If an expression communicates
  something different from another expression to human readers, but do
  not cause a compiler or interpreter to do anything differently,
  arguing that it has no "semantic" difference is ill-conceived, as we
  do not program only for the compiler or interpreter.  Using funcall
  communicates "evaluate the second position for its functional value"
  (just like apply).  Not using funcall means that the first position
  is never "stable" and can never be trusted.  This is a semantic
  difference in the language communicated to the human readers.

#:Erik
-- 
  If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations.