Re: The doc-strings for car and cdr are insulting.

[Kevin Rodgers]

Richard Stallman wrote:
>     How about something like the following, changing "LIST" to 
"CONS", and
>     using "lhs" and "rhs":
>
>     "car is a built-in function.
>      (car CONS)
>
>      Return the \"left hand side\" of CONS.  If CONS is nil, return nil.
>      If CONS is a list, the car is its first element.
>      Error if arg is not nil and not a cons cell.  See also `car-safe'."
>
>     and
>
>     "cdr is a built-in function.
>      (cdr CONS)
>
>     Return the \"right hand side\" of CONS.  If CONS is nil, return nil.
>     If CONS is a list, the cdr is the list without its first element.
>     Error if arg is not nil and not a cons cell.  See also `cdr-safe'."
>
> These are good.

They are awful.  A cons cells does not have left and right sides any
more than a list has left and right elements.  A cons cell has car and
cdr components, which are the first element and the remaining elements
of a list.

As Albert Einstein said: Things should be made as simple as possible,
but no simpler.

--
Kevin Rodgers