[cdr-discuss] AEQUALIS and COMPARE

[Marco Antoniotti]

Fair enough.  I don't have a problem making recursive-p a key.  I'll set up another vote.

Cheers

Marco



On Feb 26, 2011, at 09:53 , Christophe Rhodes wrote:

> Marco Antoniotti <marcoxa at cs.nyu.edu> writes:
> 
>> On Feb 25, 2011, at 19:58 , Matthew Swank wrote:
>>> What is the rationale for making recursive-p an optional argument instead of a
>>> keyword argument?  It generates style warnings and makes it clumsy to delegate
>>> to aequalis/compare in other functions.
>> 
>> Aesthetics?  It is nicer to write
>> 
>> (equals #((foo)) #((bar)) t)
>> 
>> than
>> 
>> (equals #((foo)) #((bar)) :recursive-p t)
>> 
>> What style warnings are generated and by which implementation?  I don't get any.
> 
> Mixing &optional and &key arguments in a lambda list is an excellent way
> to cause confusion down the line; is it nicer to write
> 
> (equals #S(foo :a 1) #S(foo :a 2) :mykey t)
> 
> or
> 
> (equals #S(foo :a 1) #S(foo :a 2) nil :mykey t)
> 
> ?  SBCL generates style warnings if you mix &optional and &key in a
> lambda list, mostly to warn people with dubious aesthetics that it's a
> fairly bad idea.  (See also the FAQ about READ-FROM-STRING).
> 
> Best,
> 
> Christophe
> 

--
Marco Antoniotti