Re: Documentation for car and cdr

[Kevin Rodgers]

Mario Domenech Goulart wrote:
> Saying "car returns the car" and "cdr returns the cdr" doesn't sound
> very useful for me if I would like to know what car and cdr do, unless I
> knew what "car" and "cdr" mean (then I wouldn't check the
> documentation). :-)
>
> Wouldn't it be better to write something like "Return the first element
> of list" and "Return a list containing all but the first element of
> list" for car and cdr, respectively?

I don't think so, but I know Lisp.

> I found this little "issue" when I was trying to show a friend of mine
> the self-documenting features of Emacs: "If you don't know what car
> means, for example, you can always check the documentation, so you can
> find out that car...  returns the car of a list...". :-) Maybe he
> thought lists can drive. :-)

I think it would be useful if the doc string contained a reference
to the "Cons Cells" node of the Emacs Lisp manual.

--
Kevin Rodgers