From: Erik Naggum <c...@naggum.no>
Subject: Re: help w/ &key in macros
Date: 1998/06/01
Message-ID: <3105673084328091@naggum.no>#1/1
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References: <cxjlnrjr76c.fsf@hawk.bu.edu> <cxjk9724g8o.fsf@raven.bu.edu> <3105643949024871@naggum.no> <cxj67il7tbl.fsf@hawk.bu.edu>
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* David Bakhash
| is there some significance to the dot `.' before and after the
| `arguments'?  i.e. what are the dots for?

  to me, such dots communicate "internal use".  in a macro, you would
  typically have used an uninterned symbol to avoid problems, except that
  this would make the argument list less than useful.  "&rest .arguments."
  at least says something moderately useful.

  (remember that all characters can be part of symbol names, and that
  people adopt many conventions to deal with cognitive overload.  *foo* for
  specials is a pretty solid convention, many use +foo+ for constants, some
  use .foo. for internal use, I used class names like <foo> for a while,
  and perhaps there are some even less widely used conventions.  :)

#:Erik
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