[pro] Learning Lisp the Bump Free Way

[Svante Carl v. Erichsen]

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Hi!

I should call it string-conc, conc-string, or conc->string.  I should
not expect from first sight that either, string+ or string*, would
concatenate.  From those names, it also would seem surprising that
they can take any sequences, not just strings, as arguments.

I see the main merit of creating such a function of reduced generality
in that you can pass it around as a simple #'string-conc instead of
(lambda (&rest sequences) (apply #'concatenate 'string sequences)).

Best wishes

Svante


Am 21.01.2011 11:20, schrieb Tord Romstad:
> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 10:22 PM, karol skocik <karol.skocik at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Some time ago, I tried to communicate on IRC channel about a very,
>> very simple addition:
>> string+, which is obviously a nice, small name for (apply
>> #'concatenate 'string strings).
> 
> Pet peeve: string+ is a *small* name, but it is not a *nice* name for
> string concatenation. Additive notation for string concatenation is
> extremely ugly and counter-intuitive for anyone who has studied
> mathematics. It is extremely annoying that C++, JavaScript and a few
> other languages have adopted this convention. Additive notation is
> normally used for commutative operations, which string concatenation
> is not.
> 
> There already is a standard notation for string concatenation, from
> long before the days of computers and programming languages.
> Mathematically, strings under concatenation is the free monoid
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoid) over the set of all available
> characters. The single binary operation in a non-commutative monoid is
> nearly always written as multiplication. And even if you don't know
> anything about abstract algebra, multiplicative notation makes much
> more sense: After all, even in elementary high school algebra, abc*de
> equals abcde, but abc+de does not.
> 
> Therefore, if you really need a function for string concatenation and
> want to share it with the world, please name it string*, not string+
> 
> Tord
> 
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- -- 
Svante Carl v. Erichsen
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21029 Hamburg

+49-(0)40-34923721
+49-(0)160-6941474
Svante.v.Erichsen at web.de
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