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Re: Why is there no `until' in elisp?


From: Paul Eggert
Subject: Re: Why is there no `until' in elisp?
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 14:35:13 -0700
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.2.1

On 10/17/18 2:15 PM, Garreau, Alexandre wrote:
“while” as used in natural language does *not* mean the same thing

Yes, of course. And the same is true for "until". But I'm not objecting to the keyword's spelling: I'm objecting to a syntax where a condition C is placed immediately before a place where C is false. This is confusing! When I read "C" I should be mentally thinking "OK, now C is true". This is elementary notation design.


It is still more natural and meaningful to say “until I’m not hungry
anymore I eat” instead of “while I’m hungry I eat”,

Not at all. Most English-speakers would say that the latter is far more readable.


the Elisp syntax for the proposed loop construct should *not* be
(until C S).
And what should it be then?
Why not use cl-loop? Although it's not perfect it's good enough, and it's better than introducing a seemingly-simple but deeply confusing syntax.



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