Re: [plt-dev] cons*, why not?

Personally, I think the name "cons*" is better because the function
does a whole bunch of cons's (and "whole bunch of" is one common
meaning of "*").

Robby

On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 10:50 AM, Eli Barzilay<eli@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Jul 12, Paulo J. Matos wrote:
>> On Sun, 2009-07-12 at 10:43 -0400, Carl Eastlund wrote:
>> > We call it list*.
>> >
>>
>> Missed that... thanks!
>> However, can't understand why list* when cons* seems a better name.
>
> 1. `list*' is older IME -- it had been part of mzscheme and every
> Â other scheme implementation I worked with, and it is "even" part of
> Â CL. ÂI have never seen `cons*' before srfi-1.
>
> 2. You can see this raised on the very first message to the srfi-1
> Â list, http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-1/mail-archive/msg00000.html
> Â with a suggestion to include both since they are "equally popular".
> Â At the time, only `list*' was suggested.
>
> Â Later, Olin simply said "General consensus is that CONS* is a
> Â better name. I have changed the name accordingly". ÂThat's in
> Â http://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-1/mail-archive/msg00033.html .
>
> 3. IMO `list*' works much better -- and sets a nice precedent for
> Â `append*' and `string-append*' which we have now. Â(The first is
> Â extremely useful, and was suggested by Ryan.) Â`cons*' does not
> Â provide the same precedent.
>
> 4. In fact, the only justification I see for `cons*' is that you can
> Â write bad things like (cons* 1 2) and (cons* 1 2 3 4 5). ÂThis is
> Â also the explanation in that first message to the srfi list ("while
> Â CONS* may suggest that the result could be an improper list").
>
> --
> Â Â Â Â Â((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) Â Â Â Â ÂEli Barzilay:
> Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Âhttp://barzilay.org/ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Maze is Life!
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