More on memq



Robert Dodier wrote:
> On 4/12/08, Richard Fateman <fateman at cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>   
>> If you replace memq by the appropriate macro expansion, my guess is it would
>>  be FASTER than member by the same or a larger factor.
>>     
>
> A much better reason for replacing archaisms with CL is that
> outsiders (i.e., anyone who has spent less than a couple of
> years on the project) will understand the code better.
> Execution time does matter but it is a secondary or tertiary
> consideration in this case.
>
>   
You keep saying this, Robert, by why don't you encourage people to make 
truly substantive changes like adding comments to the code? 

Anyone with a passing knowledge of Lisp would be able to figure out in a 
minute with a little grepping that memq is just member with a test of 
eq.  And if they can't, do you really want them hacking on the code? :-)

Some of the other changes, like those old ((lambda (a b c) ...) 1 2 3) 
things should go, but the changes should be done all at once everywhere, 
so we can have a nice clean checkin.  Just like when the code was 
converted to lower-case and indented, or when the case-sensitive feature 
was added.


Ray