Re: Why not a setf-able NIL ?

Pascal Costanza wrote:
(loop until (zerop number) ...)
Quite right, doctor. I am not sure the example (loop while number...)
was very fortunate.
What I talked about is something more far-reaching: it would allow for
instance to change the behavior of a running program on the fly
without rewriting it, just by reassigning the symbol nil.
In your solution, the finalization condition is hard-coded.
I am asking why is nil hard-coded in Common Lisp, when it has always
been said that hard-coding things is a mark of bad program design.
Talking about the possibility of being free to redefine nil, does not
mean I would want to do it.
.