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From: Kaz Kylheku <k...@kylheku.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: I never realized the funny difference between nil and () before.
Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 21:53:39 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On 2011-11-03, Tim Bradshaw <t...@tfeb.org> wrote:
> Kaz Kylheku <k...@kylheku.com> wrote:
> .
>> 
>> By "not special case it" I think you mean that it actually looks like a symbol,
>> or cons cell, etc.
>> 
> Yes. The HOPL paper describes this, in fact, and it seems to be MACLISP
> which I was remembering (a description of - I never used it). Interestingly
> tha (car nil) = nil &c thing seems to have come from InterLisp, and wasn't
> always true in other Lisps: I didn't know that.

Really. Let's make a quick peek at the Lisp 1.5 manual.

Ah, here we go. Page 2:

  "car of an atomic symbol is undefined"

Not every good idea in Lisp was discovered early, like allowing (car nil) and
(cdr nil).

This has me googling for "A Short Ballad Dedicated to The Growth Of Programs"
by Ashwin Ram. :)