[racket] first vs car ; last vs cdr ; empty? vs null?

On Mar 7, 2014, at 2:45, Daniel Carrera <dcarrera at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Is there any difference between `first` and `car`, or between `last` and `cdr`, or between `empty? and null?` ?
> 
> I had assumed that these were just synonyms, added by Racket because they might be more memorable to a student. But apparently Racket doesn't think they are equal:
> 
> -> (equal? first car)
> #f
> -> (equal? last cdr)
> #f
> -> (equal? empty? null?)
> #f
> 
> 
> I suppose that they could be separate functions that happen to do the same thing, but if so, my next question would be why they aren't just aliases. As in:
> 
> -> (define myfirst car)
> -> (equal? myfirst car)

For many/most things in racket, you can bring up the definition for something inside of DrRacket:

(define (first x)
  (if (and (pair? x) (list? x))
    (car x)
    (raise-argument-error 'first "(and/c list? (not/c empty?))" x)))

I couldn't for car, so I'm assuming it is considered a primitive.

last and cdr aren't synonymous:

(define (last l)
  (if (and (pair? l) (list? l))
    (let loop ([l l] [x (cdr l)])
      (if (pair? x)
        (loop x (cdr x))
        (car l)))
    (raise-argument-error 'last "(and/c list? (not/c empty?))" l)))


(define (empty? l) (null? l))

null? seems to be a primitive as well. Not sure why they're not direct synonyms in this case.