They Called It LISP For A Reason (2005)

9 hours ago

Lists in Lisp are historically significant as the original composite data type, though modern Common Lisp uses various data structures.
Lists remain valuable for representing heterogeneous or hierarchical data, supporting functional programming and macros.
Lists are an illusion built on cons cells (created by CONS), which store pairs of values accessed via CAR and CDR.
Lists are formed by linking cons cells through their CDRs, with the last CDR being NIL, and can be printed as parenthesized lists.
Common functions like LIST, FIRST, and REST abstract cons cell manipulation, allowing lists to hold diverse element types.
Functional programming emphasizes side-effect-free functions; many list functions (e.g., REVERSE) return results sharing cons cells with arguments.
Destructive operations include for-side-effect (e.g., SETF) and recycling functions (e.g., NREVERSE), which reuse cons cells but require caution.
Idiomatic uses of recycling functions include PUSH/NREVERSE for building lists and SETF/DELETE for modifying lists in place.
Shared structure and recycling functions can conflict, so functional style is recommended, with optimization via recycling only when safe.
List-manipulation functions include NTH, NTHCDR, composite CAR/CDR functions, and mapping functions like MAPCAR and MAPLIST.
Sorting functions (SORT, STABLE-SORT) are recycling on lists and may destroy arguments, requiring COPY-LIST for nondestructive sorting.

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