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Symbols ending in *
2 points by t1m 6165 days ago | 3 comments
A lot of the Arc code uses symbols that end in an asterisk, for example:

  (= blogtitle* "A Blog")
What does this signify?


2 points by almkglor 6165 days ago | link

The convention in Lisp languages is that global variables begin and end in , i.e. global-variable*. From the scope, it probably means that.

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2 points by t1m 6165 days ago | link

Ok thanks. Is it just a naming convention, or does anything magic happen?

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4 points by kennytilton 6165 days ago | link

Just a naming convention, but it is such an insanely easy convention to follow and recognize that what could be an absolute nightmare (dynamic binding outside the lexical scope being unwittingly shadowed and broken by an innocent choice of variable name) simply never happens. Almost like magic. :)

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