If you ignore the hyperspec, however, and get a feel for it by looking at examples and writing code using it, it becomes quite simple. It is very useful when you are translating C or Java code.
I find it quite readable in comparison to many of common lisp alternatives for iteration. And I kind of disagree that simple things aren't simple.
For example:
(loop for i from 0 below 10 do ...)
Is pretty much the simplest construct that you normally need.
Granted, I would likely just use dotimes in that case... but lets say you are iterating between 5 and 15, dotimes becomes unwieldy, where the for loop is pretty much the same code with the numbers changed.
(loop for i from 5 below 15 do ....)
Now try incrementing by 2
(loop for i from 5 below 15 by 2 do ....)
compare to the similar do* code
(do* ((i 5 (+ i 2)))
((>= i 15))
....)
kind of a toss up to me.
Not that I don't understand your point... in fact, as little as a year ago, I felt that way too... but I have since changed my mind.
My current preference is to use do* if writing a macro that needs iteration, and to use loop when I am doing something similar to a list comprehension or array traversal.
If you ignore the hyperspec, however, and get a feel for it by looking at examples and writing code using it, it becomes quite simple. It is very useful when you are translating C or Java code.
(http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/doc/cl/loop.html)
I find it quite readable in comparison to many of common lisp alternatives for iteration. And I kind of disagree that simple things aren't simple.
For example: (loop for i from 0 below 10 do ...)
Is pretty much the simplest construct that you normally need. Granted, I would likely just use dotimes in that case... but lets say you are iterating between 5 and 15, dotimes becomes unwieldy, where the for loop is pretty much the same code with the numbers changed.
(loop for i from 5 below 15 do ....)
Now try incrementing by 2
(loop for i from 5 below 15 by 2 do ....)
compare to the similar do* code
(do* ((i 5 (+ i 2)))
kind of a toss up to me.Not that I don't understand your point... in fact, as little as a year ago, I felt that way too... but I have since changed my mind.
My current preference is to use do* if writing a macro that needs iteration, and to use loop when I am doing something similar to a list comprehension or array traversal.