Re: Documentation for car and cdr

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

Alan Mackenzie <address@hidden> writes:

> Each of these sentences is completely accurate (by virtue of "loosely
> speaking"), regardless of whether LIST is a list, a dotted pair, or
> nil.

blech.  placing "loosely speaking" in the docstring decreases
credibility (take it from a practiced word weasler: those are weasel
words), and does not clarify anything.  that's certainly a bad move.

(note: CERTAINLY, not just LOOSELY SPEAKING.)

this whole thread is populated by people who know what CAR and CDR are.
people who don't, who *might* be confused, who *may* be offended by such
crass self-documentation; they won't read this or the docstring anyway!

now, i suppose someone will lark an ostensibly non-expert friend into
sending a bug report on this.  what, is it 1-april already?

thi