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by indspenceable 5252 days ago
Can someone explain how this works?

I understand that (label second '(...)) makes second evaluate to that in the future, statefully, but, the lambda symbol doesn't even appear to have a definition; furthermore, if you try to use it in a way that would work with a real lambda, it doesn't work.

For instance [[:lambda, [:x], :x], 2]

1 comments

Take a look at the second line in the `apply` definition[1]:

    self.eval @env[fn][2], Hash[*(@env[fn][1].zip args).flatten(1)]
It's triggered when the `fn` is not callable, i.e. when we pass in lambda:

    [:lambda, [:x], [:car, [:cdr, :x]]]
The code ignores the `:lambda` symbol (that would be `@env[fn][0]`).

It evals the third element of the list (the lambda body) in a new context that combines `@env` and the binding of lambda's args to the symbols in the lambda's definition -- that's what the `Hash` mumbo jumbo creates.

[1]: https://github.com/fogus/ulithp/blob/b02d5806ce3b2d3766311c2...