newLISP_in_21_minutes.html, part 1

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Yussi
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:05 pm

newLISP_in_21_minutes.html, part 1

Post by Yussi »

Hello!

I've been going through the document newLISP_in_21_minutes.html at

www.newlisp.org

It's a very nice quick review of some of newLISP features. Although this is not
one of those "or your money back" situations I have to inform you that it took
me considerably more than 21 minutes to go through it and I now understand that
the name was a joke in reference to all those "Learn X in Y minutes/hours/days/etc."

But I had fun and learnt a lot. Now I have some suggestions to make.

I tried to mail this text to the address jsmall@atlaol.net given in thedoc
but it's not valid any more.

I'm on a Win 10 machine and my newLISP is:

newLISP v.10.7.5 64-bit on Windows IPv4/6 libffi, options: newlisp -h

I've tried to copy relevant parts of the text to show the place I'm talking about.
The order is forward from start of text. OK, here goes:


Think of quote as taking its argument literally, i.e. symbolically.

> 'x
x
> (quote x)
' x <======= hyphen not shown in reality !!!
> '(1 2 three "four")
(1 2 three "four")
> _


================================================

The symbols 'hello and 'world are bound in the current context to ...

shouldn't it be:

The symbols hello and world are bound in the current context to ...


================================================

Let's rap up this section by seeing how to turn our example into a program.
===>
Let's wrap up this section by seeing how to turn our example into a program.


================================================

After the Binding subheading:

Aren't setq and define macros and set a function?


================================================

In this case the value 'x, a symbol, has been bound to the variable named y.

shouldn't it be:

In this case the value of 'x, the symbol x, has been bound to the variable named y.


================================================

And of course y remains bound to 'x as shown above.
===>
And of course y remains bound to x as shown above.


================================================

varible
===>
variable


================================================

The rest of a empty list or a list with only one element is again the empty list
===>
The rest of an empty list or a list with only one element is the empty list
^^


================================================

In the explanation of the recursive list-length function is
this sentence that I don't understand:

Thus we could have simply tested a-list instead with the same effect.

Does it mean:

Thus we were able to test a-list instead of using a Boolean expression


================================================

The arguments 1 and 2 are superfluous.
===>
The argument 2 is superfluous and the argument value 1 for y is shadowed by the value 6 in setq.

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