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REC and LETREC



    Date: 29 Mar 1985 18:36:48-EST
    From: linus!ramsdell at Mitre-Bedford

    By the way, is the predicate PROCEDURE? missing?

It is intentionally missing; the decision to omit it was the outcome of
a discussion at the workshop.  As I remember, it was decided that it was
unnecessary, and certain people (me) thought it was possibly meaningless
and/or harmful.

    Could some one explain why LETREC is preferable to LABELS?

It was decided that a way to introduce local recursive definitions was
absolutely necessary; DEFINE of course being out of the question, there
was a heated debate between the names LABELS and LETREC, the LABELS
people arguing for English words and respect for the 1978 Revised Report
and Common Lisp, and the LETREC people arguing for something more
descriptive and allegedly pervasive in FP literature.  The LABELS camp
(me) was overwhelmed, so LETREC it is.  Let us be happy there was any
agreement at all.

Jonathan