From owner-freebsd-hackers  Tue Jan 25 16:55:31 2000
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From: "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@hub.freebsd.org>
To: dillon@apollo.backplane.com
Cc: wes@softweyr.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
In-reply-to: <200001251726.JAA04722@apollo.backplane.com> (message from
	Matthew Dillon on Tue, 25 Jan 2000 09:26:19 -0800 (PST))
Subject: Re: kern/13644
Message-Id: <20000126005528.7DC0314BCF@hub.freebsd.org>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 16:55:28 -0800 (PST)
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> 

Matt Dillon wrote:
> 
> :>     Ah, indeed!  nul/NUL == ascii.  'nil' should removed from our vocabulary.
> :> 

Jonathan Bresler wrote:
> :
> :	NIL or nil, is the nil pointer from lisp.  lisp is often the
> :first time many people start to understans that data can drive
> :programs.  this is a good thing.
> :
> :jmb
> 
>     I don't know anybody under the age of 30 who knows lisp.  And, frankly,
>     since both the system and virtually all of its support programs are written
>     in C, C terminology is going to be considerably more effective then lisp
>     or pascal terminology.


	There are a number of people, under 30, that write code using
emacs and create their own macros in lisp.

	The terminology is very simple.  Anyone that can cope with
either vi or emacs can learn:

	NUL: an ascii character (0x00)
	NIL: a pointer at the end of the line
	NULL pointer: used in C to refer to NIL.
		not to be confused with NUL.

jmb


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