[Maxima-bugs] [maxima:bugs] #3888 Documentation: "the quote-quote operator '' defeats quotation."

[Robert D. <rob...@us...>]

I agree that "defeats quotation" is going to be pretty obscure. Here's another attempt.
```
     'kill' quotes (does not evaluate) its arguments.  'apply(kill,
     [<a_1>, ..., <a_n>])' ensures evaluation of the arguments <a_1>,
     ..., <a_n>.
```
Stavros, I agree it's best to show the example with `'kill` instead of just `kill`, but the presence of single quotes in the Texinfo output makes it ambiguous; it would look like `'apply('kill, ...)'`, and then the reader has to sort out what's really part of the code and what's just typography. Maybe there's another way to do it.


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** [bugs:#3888] Documentation: "the quote-quote operator '' defeats quotation."**

**Status:** open
**Group:** None
**Labels:** documentation 
**Created:** Wed Nov 24, 2021 03:07 PM UTC by Stavros Macrakis
**Last Updated:** Sat Dec 04, 2021 01:48 AM UTC
**Owner:** nobody


In 7 places in the doc, we read "the quote-quote operator '' defeats quotation."
This is horribly misleading. In fact, quote-quote operates at *read time* and cannot "defeat quotation" within code, where "defeating quotation" would be most useful. For example, 
~~~~
mycompile(f) := compile(''f)$
mycompile('myfun)$
~~~~
Will not compile ``myfun``, but ``f``.

If we think it's important to document a way of "defeating quotation", we should suggest something like
~~~~
mycompile(f):= apply('compile,[f])
~~~~

Ugly, I know, but at least it is correct.


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