Re: Very poor Lisp performance

Jon Harrop wrote:
and there's no simple QUOTE operator

What does the quote operator do?

Basically allow you to create symbols (unique values that can be compared for equality) and to create lists verbatim, so you don't have to create them with (list ...) or cons.

- things keep evaluating until they stop changing unless wrapped in special Hold forms that have to stick with it to keep
it from evaluating in the future.

Yes. I thought that was a direct equivalent of QUOTE.

Hm, dunno. Quote is for creating Lisp values (lists etc.). If you don't quote, the list you write is evaluated.

In Lisp macros, I think you need quote, so you can create symbols like IF, FUNCALL and others (literal function or variable names), because without quote they'd be evaluated right away.

--
I believe in Karma.  That means I can do bad things to people
all day long and I assume they deserve it.
	Dogbert
.

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