On 7/15/05, Richard M. Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > These were useful in specific ways. Are user-defined constants > useful in specific ways?
Aren't user-defined constants useful in other languages? Isn't it useful per se to be able to set a symbol and guarantee that the user, or another module, is not going to change it by accident? Certainly Common Lisp is not above having constants (http://www.lisp.org/HyperSpec/Body/mac_defconstant.html), and at least some implementations treat them as true constants: ;;; An error occurred in function COMPILE-FORM: ;;; Error: The symbol *Z* has been declared constant, and may not be assigned to What do you ask for? An example? What if the constants define absolute sizes of external resources (like, for example, `bindat--fixed-length-alist') and every single attempt to change them could be considered an error (and possibly crash Emacs)? > No motive was mentioned for adding a primitive to set the flag except > that the flag exists. That's "completeness' sake". No, that's "I assumed the value of real constants in programming languages was way beyond needing a rationale"... Perhaps I'm assuming too much. -- /L/e/k/t/u _______________________________________________ Emacs-devel mailing list Emacs-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-devel
