Florian Ebeling writes: > > It is just a case of elision I guess. DEFFUN would be a little too > > much for the ear. > > Why, I like it. DEFFUN. That almost 'have fun'. > And defun looks a bit like defunction (which seems not > to be an english word), or even defunct.
As any youngling, you are always forgetting or ignoring that the world existed before your birth. The reason why DEFUN is lacking a F, while DEFMACRO and DEFCLASS don't and while DEFINE-SETF-EXPANDER or DEFINE-CONDITION are spelled out entirely is merely history. That is, the time at which these names were invented. Find a nearby computer museum and try to type DEFINE-FUNCTION on a 80-column punch card. Note how a longer name increases the probability of a typo, which is costly since you have to type again the whole card from scratch. Note how hard the keys on a 029 are to press. Soon enough you'll be happy to spare a key or two. Later, when DEFMACRO and DEFCLASS were invented they worked with video terminals, and electronic keyboards. It was easier to type, but the screen was still imited to 80x24. Hence the short but consistent names. When DEFINE-CONDITION et al. were introduced bitmap screens were usual (at least on the LispMachines where this was invented), and more ergonimic keyboards, proportional fonts, and autocompleting editors were available so fully spelled out names were no problems. That's why Common Lisp is nice and wonderful, compared to Scheme: it has historic and prehistoric layers, which add more substance to the language. Common Lisp is a natural language like French, Scheme is an artificial language like Esperanto. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ NOTE: The most fundamental particles in this product are held together by a "gluing" force about which little is currently known and whose adhesive power can therefore not be permanently guaranteed. _______________________________________________ Gardeners mailing list [email protected] http://www.lispniks.com/mailman/listinfo/gardeners
