Function CAR in LISP program returns the first element in a list.
(car '(a b c d)) Returns a
Function CDR would return everything but the first element in a list.
(cdr '(a b c d)) returns (b c d)
There are of course many variations of this.
(cadr '(a b c d)) Returns b
Working from the inside out is the same as (car (cdr '(a b c d)))
I would insist to reintroduce "Lot of Insane and Stupid Parenthesis" somewhere this is a famous joke and has also its place in Wikipedia. Ericd 20:27 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)
It is in there. Paragraph 2 of "Syntax". It's "Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses", btw (sometimes also "Lots of Isolated Silly Parenthesis".) -- CYD
I propose that this page should be entitled Lisp programming language for two reasons: First, the spelling "LISP" (in capitals) does not seem to be used among current practitioners of the language. (See for instance the newsgroup comp.lang.lisp and the work of Paul Graham.) Second, this will bring it in line with the other pages of the form "Name programming language" while preserving distinction from the word for the speech impediment. --FOo 00:40 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- I don't think we need programming language. In fact, many article has no programming language suffix. Take Fortran, C Plus Plus and so on. -- Taku 00:47 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- Hmm. LISP is its proper name, and since it's an acronym, it seems to me more appropriate to keep it in caps. Perl, for example, is in lowercase, since it was backronymed, and is not really supposed to be in caps. COBOL remains uppercase, without the "programming language" suffix. Fortran has no suffix either. Convention seems to say leave it as is... -- Wapcaplet 00:58 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- "LISP" is long-obsolete; look at 2nd edition Common Lisp the Language from 1990 for instance, it's always spelled "Lisp", in contrast to 1st ed., which used small caps. I'd personally prefer Lisp (programming language) because someday we might have spiffy software that filters ()-disambiguators in article headings and such, but Lisp programming language is OK too. Stan 01:12 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- There already is such a thing: the magic piping trick. For example, typing [[spin (physics)|]] gives you spin. Unlike the names of other programming languages, Lisp has another meaning, i.e. a speech defect. Therefore, the article should be named Lisp (programming language). -- CYD
- Since there is an obvious ambiguity, I have no objection to rename this to Lisp programming language. Please don't use (programming language) because that style is not used usually. -- Taku 01:53 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
According to the convension about naming programming language, we don't put pre-diambiguation programming language. It is debatable but is an agreement that seems reached. I am not sure which one LISP or Lisp. To me LISP sounds rather antiquated but I am not sure. -- Taku 01:19 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- To me, spelling it "LISP" reeks of either a botched transliteration from small-caps (as with "UNIX", see the jargon file) or a usage on all-caps terminals or filesystems. Bleah. I recognize the "Foo programming language" (rather than "Foo (programming language)") convention for languages whose names have another meaning (like Python, C, and Lisp, and unlike Fortran) --FOo 03:55 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I agree that this should be moved to "Lisp programming language". The lower case form is much more common. -- Minesweeper 17:33 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Which variants of Lisp have native Unicode support? --Hirzel
- http://www.cliki.net/Unicode%20and%20Lisp -- Taku 02:17 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)