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3-LISP WORKING GUIDE#3: Referent

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Issue #3:REFERENT should not be primitive.

Description:As the up-down theorem shows, REFERENT is a bit too powerful to be acceptable as a primitive procedure. Moreover, it is seldom used in its full-blown form; the "down-arrow" notation is almost always sufficient. For these reasons, and others (see below), a much simpler primitive procedure is required.

Status:Resolved. REFERENT will be replaced by a primitive called DOWN that will only dereference a normal-form designator. For example, (DOWN ’1) => 1 but (DOWN ’A) will be an error. Moreover, the "down-arrow" notation expands to a DOWN redex; i.e., ’\X’ is short hand for ’(DOWN X)’.

Last Edited:September 17, 1982 (Jim des Rivières)

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[Insert material from the Hitchhiker’s Guide here.]