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From: lord@cygnus.com (Tom Lord)
Subject: Re: Why eval? (was: Dynamic inheritance using Scheme?)
In-Reply-To: bh@anarres.CS.Berkeley.EDU's message of 14 Feb 1995 18:18:53 GMT
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Date: Tue, 14 Feb 1995 21:17:50 GMT
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	bh:

	I think that all this practical talk we're having about the
	pros (convenience) and cons (inefficiency) of eval leaves out
	what I think is the historical reason for its existence: the
	total coolness of having the innards of the language out where
	the user can see them.  It's nice that we can write a two-line
	REPL and say "here's how the interpreter works"!

	I know this sort of talk is hopelessly naive by c.l.s standards.  
	Sorry.

I think that particular coolness runs very deep and is well worth
pointing out even in very general terms (you could probably never run
out of specific elaborations).  If such talk is really counter to
c.l.s standards, i think the shame belongs to c.l.s. and not to Brian
Harvey.

-t
