Re: [DOC] About Lisp Data Types

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

> On Aug 1, 2021, at 22:00, Kevin Vigouroux via Users list for the GNU Emacs 
> text editor <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> I agree with you. Unfortunately, some parts of the explanation are
> unclear or missing.
> 
>    In other languages, an expression is text; it has no other form.  In
>    Lisp, an expression is primarily a Lisp object and only secondarily the
>    text that is the object’s read syntax.  Often there is no need to
>    emphasize this distinction, but you must keep it in the back of your
>    mind, or you will occasionally be very confused.
> 
> • An expression is a Lisp object which gives its meaning.
> • An expression cannot be understood in its original form (text).
> 
> It makes no sense at first.

It looks like what you find confusing is the co-existence of a textual 
representation of a "thing" and the thing itself. It helped me to read the 2nd 
chapter of Ansi Common Lisp by Paul Graham to understand that part of Lisp.

Page 22 of the introduction to programming in elisp (2.2 Getting Buffers) uses 
the same code as the one you refer to here in that part of the Elisp reference 
but goes deeper into explanations between the difference between a name and the 
thing it names.

-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @brandelune
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/