The Why Combinator

The Hyperspec is the place to go to find out *what* functions Lisp contains and *how* they work. Common Lisp the Language even explains a little about *who* created each portion (both the people and the earlier Lisp versions involved) and plenty of historical background, the *when*. But the Why Combinator is an attempt to explain the *why*: why you would choose DEFVAR over DEFPARAMETER, why you would use LOOP instead of DO, and so on.

The goal is to have one entry here for each function, macro, variable and constant listed in the Hyperspec, with advice, caveats and code examples for each. As one would expect with any wiki, this requires help from willing volunteers. Please go to the Hyperspec, pick your favourite index entry, add it into the index here, then create a page and fill it with useful information.

Your audience is the beginning Lisp programmer, the occasional dabbler, the old hand needing a bit of a memory jogger, and the experienced Lisp guru who wouldn't mind seeing how the rest of the community thinks. In other words: everyone.

Cliki isn't really the ideal venue for a project like The Why Combinator. An actual implementation is coming, but it will take a little while. Stay tuned for exciting developments...

CLiki pages can be edited by anyone at any time. Imagine a fearsomely comprehensive disclaimer of liability. Now fear, comprehensively