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bug#17485: [PATCH 1/3] Let length+ return the length of dotted lists rat
From: |
David Kastrup |
Subject: |
bug#17485: [PATCH 1/3] Let length+ return the length of dotted lists rather than #f |
Date: |
Wed, 04 Jun 2014 12:09:16 +0200 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4.50 (gnu/linux) |
David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:
>> Otherwise, this function looks good to me, but I'd prefer to give it a
>> new name and move it into list.c, rather than extending SRFI-1's
>> 'length+'.
It's not an "extension" of SRFI-1's length+: it just does the same as
the SRFI-1 reference implementation. It is just a different choice of
working with unspecified behavior than yours.
>> Hmm, coming up with names is hard. Maybe 'length*'?
>
> Given what cons* (and use of id* in syntax rules) does, the name seems
> inappropriate. length* would be a good name for
>
> (length* clist1 clist* ... )
>
> returns the length of the shortest finite list in the given lists, #f
> if there is none. Which would be actually a rather nice building
> block to have for several srfi-1 functions and would basically not
> make us need length+ at all in its implementation.
And that's actually the core of the argument: do we really want to offer
a "length+" that is at best marginally useful for srfi-1 itself?
For a library design, that sounds a lot like "does not eat its own dog
food". Are we really doing users a favor by filling in the
"unspecified" corners of the srfi-1 in a manner not making for a
coherent whole?
--
David Kastrup