5 ms·
Have yet to see a non-lisp language that fully handles the lisp 'nada' stuff correctly without programmer having to do some extra work. Where equating extra wor
by sargstuff 4y ago
Have yet to see a non-lisp language that fully handles the lisp 'nada' stuff correctly without programmer having to do some extra work. Where equating extra work because language didn't handle primatives as language issue that causes needless problems for programmer.
NIL not equivalent to NULL, "", ''.
Shortest non-theory example, taken from punchcard reader operations manual.
NIL -> no more cards going through card reader.
NULL -> reached end of card
vertical (carrage return), horizontal, "group"/tab space character
all blank card, no data -> no punches, no mem, max line count
all blank card, all spaces -> no punches, max mem, max line count
all deleted card -> assume doesn't jam machine, no line count.
Best command line example would be linearly chaining unix shell scripts using pipes & redirection to simulate a spread sheet. historical command characters (usually non-printable) become the sticking point (pipe & file names). aka is value of 0 a representation of NIL, NULL, no error code, delete character, no-character, string without line terminator, first byte in multi-byte sequence (unicode / internet mask), indirect file/memory location reference.
To handle the aformentioned 'specials', have to go outside the linear pipe sequence.