mwm@ea.UUCP (09/13/84)
/***** ea:net.lang / mit-eddi!barmar / 5:57 pm Sep 11, 1984 */ In article <78@rlgvax.UUCP> jack@rlgvax.UUCP (Jack Waugh) writes: >If I >remember correctly, Lisp treats one as a self-quoting constant. >Lisp example: > (foo bar (bletch)) >In each example, the interpretation is to call bletch, then call >foo with "bar" as its first argument, and the value returned from >bletch is its second. You remember incorrectly. /* ---------- */ Only partly so. There is at least one LISP that sports a feature (well, they *call* it a feature) called "auto-quote". Anytime you try to evaluate an undefined atom, it gets bound to its printname. Hence (setq bar bletch) binds the string "bletch" to bar. This LISP also had "auto-cond'ing" and "auto-sequencing," which cause strange an unexpected interpretation of mis-parenthesized code. If I remember correctly, the *only* error message from this LISP system was "out of memory." Yuch. <mike