About the primitive macros `and' and `or'

[Yi DAI]

Hi,

I don't see the point why Scheme provides the general `and' and `or' as primitive macros (which does stand in our way when we wanna (apply and things) instead of primitive procedures. For efficiency? I don't think there would be much compared to the following definitions:

(define (gand . l)  ; 'g'eneral 'and'

  (define (iand l)

    (if (null? l)

        #t

        (let ((b (car l))

              (bs (cdr l)))

          (cond ((null? bs) b)

                (b (iand bs))

                (else #f)))))

  (iand l))

(define (gor . l)  ; 'g'eneral 'or'

  (define (ior l)

    (if (null? l)

        #f

        (let ((b (car l))

              (bs (cdr l)))

          (cond ((null? bs) b)

                (b b)

                (else (ior bs))))))

  (ior l))

If anyone can give a reasonable explanation, I may buy it. Otherwise, I will go with my version in the future. And I suggest Guile or the standard committee fix this annoying `bug' of Scheme.

Finally, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all us Guile users, and Guile developers. We look forward the final 2.0 release of Guile in the coming new year.

Best wishes,

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DAY