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by reitzensteinm 17 days ago
“Functions use dynamic scoping. This is categorically a mistake, and one which ironically has been suggested to seriously mess up fexprs.” (links to Kernel)

It’s possible my interpretation wasn’t correct and the author was citing Kernel’s approach as sanity. That would make sense technically.

2 comments

> It’s possible my interpretation wasn’t correct and the author was citing Kernel’s approach as sanity. That would make sense technically.

That's indeed what I meant, I meant the opposite of taking a dig at Kernel. My understanding is Shutt thought fexprs got a bad wrap because of dynamic scoping; quoth the Kernel website:

> they made a mess out of the language semantics because they were non-orthogonal to the ordinary variety of procedures constructed via lambda — and, more insidiously, because at that time the mainstream Lisps were dynamically scoped (a language feature that causes more problems for fexprs than it does for the less powerful macros).

My belated apologies for the ambiguity.

My belated apologies for the misunderstanding. The irony of me coming here and throwing shade on your work as a result is not lost on me.
That's what the author means. She know what she's talking about.
I never doubted that. It’s clear the author knows their shit.