Re: Issue: LAMBDA-FORM (Version 2)

[Jeff Dalton <jeff%aiai.edinburgh.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>]

BTW, I would prefer that LAMBDA be a special form rather than a macro
so that (LAMBDA ...) rather than (FUNCTION (LAMBDA ...)) could be
considered the more fundamental form.

> There are several ways of rationalizing the dual existence of 
> (lambda ...) and #'(lambda ...).
> 
> One says that you'd have flushed #'(lambda ...) if only you could have
> but you couldn't for compatibility reasons. I personally think the
> situation is more complicated than this,

I do too.  For one thing, I may be convenient to speak of a single
case, FUNCTION, rather than two, LAMBDA-expressions and (FUNCTION 
<symbol>).

> Another argument says that (LAMBDA ...) creates a closure, while
> (FUNCTION ...) accesses a function by name -- and that (LAMBDA ...)
> is the name of the closure which is created by (LAMBDA ...). 
> [...]  I'm a fan of this argument.

I guess I am too, given the overlong discussion of whether FUNCTION
should simply access a value or create one on the general CL list.