why are there [v e c t o r s] in Lisp?

[Emanuel Berg]

One of the things I like the most with Lisp is the way
it is typed and written. It is just so much more
enjoyable both to type and read. And otherwise
interact with (e.g., the help). Long words are
prefered, with everything spelled out - compare
`gnus-action-message-log' to the argc, argv, etc.
of typical C! Also dashes instead of the ugly
underscore, which is less readable, and slower as well
(two keys instead of one for the dash) - and then to
think of the worst case, the CamelCase of Java (no pun
intended - still, better keep the sick bags nearby!).
And then while not exactly ugly, who needs the curly
braces to delimit functions (virtually all other
languages, apparently), or for that matter the square
brackets of array indexes and iteration? Or the
semi-colon to delimit expressions and statements?
They are just a bit tricky to type (except for the
semi-colon) and they make the code look like an
anthill - for no reason as Lisp shows. But there is
one thing that clouds the perfect sky - vectors.
I realized this when I was thinking about this. Why is
there a special syntax for vectors? In linear algebra,
an n-dimensional vector is a sequence of n numbers,
and collectively they make for something that has
direction and magnitude (in particular, it doesn't
have a position). But whatever the math, isn't that (a
sequence of numbers) something that the lists of Lisp
can handle just as well, or actually better, as it
will be more generic (a lot of stuff that doesn't work
on "real" Lisp vectors will work on vectors that are
also lists). And using lists doesn't mean nobody
cannot write hundreds of "math vector" specific stuff
to modify those list vectors! Right?

Have a look:

    (vectorp [1 2 3]) ; t

    (vectorp '(1 2 3)) ; nil - really?

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573