Re: why are there [v e c t o r s] in Lisp?

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com>
> writes:
>
>> The essence of vector is to define a direction and
>> a magnitude. Notably for vector spaces without
>> a finite basis, V/|V| is still the direction of the
>> vector V, intrinsically (every unitary vector is
>> a distinct direction).
>
> Yes, but perhaps what Aurélien Aptel said (vectors in
> linear algebra being a tool concept to model just
> about anything) is analogous to the vectors of Elisp
> being data structures that can hold data for virtually
> any purpose? And then, why aren't the Elisp vectors
> simply called "arrays" like everywhere else?

Because everybody else got it wrong: they don't have (multidimensional)
arrays, they only have vectors (even when they have syntactic sugar to
make vectors of vectors, they aren't arrays).

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                 http://www.informatimago.com/
“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a
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