Re: Why aren't `find`, `find-if`, `remove-if` part of Emacs Lisp?

[Barry Margolin]

In article <mailman.3836.1403025251.1147.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
 Nicolas Petton <petton.nicolas@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi guys,
> 
> Emacs Lisp is a great Lisp dialect, but I miss `find`, `find-if`,
> `remove-if`, etc. iteration functions a lot. Sure, I can require cl-lib
> or use dash, but I'm wondering why these functions are not part of the
> base language?

Emacs Lisp was mostly patterned after MACLISP. It didn't have these 
functions, either. I think they were introduced in ZetaLisp or NIL, and 
Common Lisp inherited them from these dialects. MACLISP didn't have as 
many of these higher-level functions as Common Lisp does. Elisp mostly 
added on stuff related specifically to editing and buffer management, 
but not much to do with basic data types like lists.

For a long time Elisp didn't even have floating point numbers!

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***