this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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Why do some folks use keywords instead of symbols? (alien.top)
submitted 11 months ago by funk443@alien.top to c/lisp
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For example, I've seen someone defining a package like so:

(defpackage :foobar
  (:use :cl))

instead of:

(defpackage foobar
  (:use cl))

Is there any actual difference? Or it's just a personal preference, and has no effect on the program at all?

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[–] fvf@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

An interned symbol will hang around forever, adding load to GC, memory footprint, symbol clutter, etc. A non-interned symbol has nearly zero of any of these costs.

These are very minor considerations, perhaps only meaningful for release-quality library code.