From ... Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news2.kpn.net!news.kpn.net!nslave.kpnqwest.net!nloc2.kpnqwest.net!nloc.kpnqwest.net!nmaster.kpnqwest.net!nreader3.kpnqwest.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: On conditionals References: <3215299538573186@naggum.net> <9tgcpc$3ce$1@news.gte.com> <3215360195434986@naggum.net> <3BFC2BC7.BDD2CEF0@nyc.rr.com> Mail-Copies-To: never From: Erik Naggum Message-ID: <3215377267841910@naggum.net> Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway Lines: 18 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 00:21:08 GMT X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@KPNQwest.no X-Trace: nreader3.kpnqwest.net 1006388468 193.71.66.49 (Thu, 22 Nov 2001 01:21:08 MET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 01:21:08 MET Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.lisp:20683 * Thomas F. Burdick | Would it really kill people to put a couple (not (null ..))s here and | there, and make their intentions more explicit? Yes. Adding (not (null ...)) to previously obvious code would make everything nearly unreadable. Besides, the intention _is_ to return the empty list to those who look for a list and false to those who want a boolean value. This is an important property of Common Lisp. Scheme does not have this property, and consequently Scheme systems have a gazillion small functions that are anal-retentively type-specific. One of the reasons I like Common Lisp is that it has none of this nonsense. /// -- Norway is now run by a priest from the fundamentalist Christian People's Party, the fifth largest party representing one eighth of the electorate. -- Carrying a Swiss Army pocket knife in Oslo, Norway, is a criminal offense.