Notation
--------
Wherever an example of evaluating a Lisp form is shown it will be
formatted like this,
(+ 1 2)
=> 3
The glyph `=>' is used to show the computed value of a form. (1)
When two forms are shown as being exactly equivalent to one another
the glyph `==' is used, for example,
(car some-variable) == (nth 0 some-variable)
Evaluating some forms result in an error being signalled, this is
denoted by the `error-->' glyph.
(open-file "/tmp/foo" 'read)
error--> File error: No such file or directory, /tmp/foo
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) In this case the list `(+ 1 2)' (i.e. the list containing three
elements, the symbol `+' and, the numbers 1 and 2), represents a
function application. The first element in the list is the name of the
function to be called, all other elements are the arguments to apply to
it. Since the `+' function adds a series of numbers, the above function
call is actually performing the computation `1 + 2'.