Re: The FIXME in `dotimes'

[Philip Kaludercic]

Mattias Engdegård <mattiase@acm.org> writes:

> 7 sep. 2022 kl. 15.37 skrev Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>:
>
>>   (dotimes (count) ...)
>
> Lisp syntax rarely make the first element optional, and in this case
> it's both the first and the last one:
>
>   (dotimes ([VAR] COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
>
> which is a bit alien, and it's perhaps not worth the trouble for just
> omitting an underscore?
>
>>   (dotimes count ...)
>
> That wouldn't allow for arbitrary expressions so it's of limited
> utility (and Lisp-alien, again). There's also the risk that someone
> will eventually replace a variable by a function call, turning
> (dotimes x ...) into (dotimes (f x) ...).

I agree, the idea was not well thought out and not worth the
complication.