--- Richard Fateman wrote:
> That;s all that defmspec does. Sometimes you must forbid
> the evaluation of some or all of the arguments to a function.
>
> The Maclisp dialect of lisp had lots of different
> mechanisms for argument evaluation.
>
> expr = usual evaluation
> subr = compiled version of expr
>
> then there were fexpr, lexpr, and I guess macro. Plus
> some others like fexpr* I think. Macsyma imitated this
> diversity by allowing mfexpr .
Is this diversity desirable?
> We used to define ordinary functions by
> (defprop foo (lambda(x) ....) expr)
>
> or
> (putprop 'foo '(lambda(x) ...) 'expr)
>
> [approximately; I am trying to recall from dim memory...]
So defprop and defun definitions in Maxima are roughly the same thing,
just done using different definition styles? If so, is there any
reason not to modernize the defprop style to something more readily
recognizable to modern lisp coders?
(Sorry if I'm being a goober.)
Cheers,
CY
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