C Y wrote:
.....
>
>
> So defprop and defun definitions in Maxima are roughly the same thing,
> just done using different definition styles?
Yes, maclisp might in fact expand
(defun foo (x) ...) into
(defprop foo (lambda(x) ...) expr)
If so, is there any
> reason not to modernize the defprop style to something more readily
> recognizable to modern lisp coders?
I think it is only historical.
>
> (Sorry if I'm being a goober.)
I think the presence of things like fexpr were part of Bill Schelter's
approach to running maclisp code in Common Lisp. Some of the things
are actually kind of ugly. e.g.
[old maclisp construct]==> (clever code by Bill Schelter) ==> [running code in Common Lisp]
instead of re-writing (sometimes trivially) the
old maclisp construct.
I remember looking at some of this clever code in horror. In
the Franz Lisp version of macsyma (vaxima?) we just rewrote the
maclisp construct in "more modern" lisp, at least some times.
But the "more modern" lisp was not necessarily Common Lisp, and
when it appeared that Bill's code worked well enough on Common
Lisp, the impetus to "clean it up" kind of vanishes.
> Cheers,
> CY
>
Not being a goober, exactly. There is however, a common
maxim: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
RJF