Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site bcsaic.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!unc!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!shebs From: shebs@bcsaic.UUCP (stan shebs) Newsgroups: net.ai Subject: Re: AIList Digest V3 #93 (Interlisp comments) Message-ID: <192@bcsaic.UUCP> Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 20:12:55 EDT Article-I.D.: bcsaic.192 Posted: Mon Jul 15 20:12:55 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jul-85 04:06:48 EDT References: <9054@ucbvax.ARPA> Reply-To: shebs@bcsaic.UUCP (stan shebs) Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle Lines: 24 Summary: >From: Steve Crocker>Subject: Interlisp comments are first class citizens > >As has been noted, comments in Interlisp are simply functions that don't >have any useful value. The "*" is used as the function symbol, and that >works fine, although any other symbol such as ";" or "comment" could have >been used as well. Once you get the idea that comments are simply "useless" >functions, I find it hard to understand why there's much trouble placing >them correctly. I believe that one of the original complaints was that "comments as functions" doesn't work well in a purely functional language. Interlisp has never pretended to be particularly functional (pun unintentional), so there's lots of places to put comment "functions" - namely, any place where a side-effecting function call would go. If your programs have progns all over the place, it's easy; if (like myself) you try to make things more functional, the choices dwindle rapidly. My best solution to this problem involves treating comments as s-expressions and then having another level of preprocessing built into the interpreter and compiler that flushes comments, yielding a valid program. Not elegant, but it would work in a purely functional language. stan shebs