Historical curiosity

[Olve]

Hi,

(defun who help-string what)
(defvar who help-string what)
(defconst who what help-string)

Any idea as to what that came to be?
Best, O.

[Barry Margolin]

Post by Olve
Hi,
(defun who help-string what)
(defvar who help-string what)

It's

(defvar who what help-string)

Post by Olve
(defconst who what help-string)
Any idea as to what that came to be?

You mean why it's different for defun than the others? Because the
"what" of a defun is often long, and you don't want to have to scroll to
the end to find the doc string. Also, a function returns the last thing
in its body, so if you put the docstring at the end, it would actually
be the return value. A string by itself at the beginning of the body has
no effect, so it could be recognized as the doc string.

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Post by Olve
Hi,
(defun who help-string what)
(defvar who help-string what)
(defconst who what help-string)
Any idea as to what that came to be?

From your crazy mind?

It's:

(defun who what help-string how)
(defvar who what help-string)
(defconst who what help-string)

ex.:

(defconst +twiddle+ 'object "A constant twiddle object")
(defvar *twiddle* 'object "A variable twiddle object")
(defun twiddle (object) "Twiddle the `OBJECT`" (twiddle *twiddle* (twiddly object +twiddle+)))

[Olve]

[...]

Post by Pascal J. Bourguignon
From your crazy mind?

Is that supposed to be funny? O.