(setq 'a 3), what does it mean?

[psilwen]

(setq a 2) => 2
(setq 'a 3) => 3
(eval a) => 2
(eval 'a) => 2
(eval ''a) => a

(setq a 2) equivalent to (set 'a 2)
(setq 'a 3) equivalent to (set ''a 3)?
but result is:
(set ''a 3) =>
ERR: symbol expected in function set : ''a

[HPW]

Hello,

I would expect that (setq 'a 3) should throw the same error as with (set ''a 3).
(Autocad's autolisp does so)

Regards

[Lutz]

[rickyboy]

[TedWalther]

My head hurts.

[ralph.ronnquist]

[rickyboy]

[TedWalther]

The thing I like the most about newLISP is that it has the least amount of "surprise" compared to other Lisps. And my ideas of "surprise" come from my C/shell/Unix background.

So, with the recent addition to the get-string function, I found myself again "surprised"... because the "chunk" size changes if you put the magic values of '\000\000' or '\000\000\000\000' in as delimiters. I feel like the less surprising thing would be to have get-bytes be raw data, and get-string be for getting strings of characters, no matter what the format.

Principle of Least Surprise. Makes my head feel clear and powerful.

Lately, I find myself getting more and more surprised. Every surprise means a gotcha, means yet another bit of state to hold in my head when programming.

[psilwen]

[Lutz]

[TedWalther]

That sounds a lot clearer. Guess there was some Paul Graham macro tutorial stuff still rattling around in my brain. The way Paul Graham taught it, ' actually is a macro that expands to (quote). And in newLisp, it behaves a little bit like a macro, even though there are no Common Lisp style macros.

[ralph.ronnquist]