Hofstadter on Lisp (1983)

Interestingly, this is no longer the case. Modern Lisps now evaluate (car nil) and (cdr nil) to nil. In the original Lisp defined by John McCarthy, indeed CAR and CDR were undefined for NIL. Quoting from <https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/367177.367199>:

> Here NIL is an atomic symbol used to terminate lists.

> car [x] is defined if and only if x is not atomic.

> cdr [x] is also defined when x is not atomic.

However, both Common Lisp and Emacs Lisp define (car nil) and (cdr nil) to be nil. Quoting from <https://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/f_car...>:

> If x is a cons, car returns the car of that cons. If x is nil, car returns nil.

> If x is a cons, cdr returns the cdr of that cons. If x is nil, cdr returns nil.

Also, quoting from <https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Li...>:

> Function: car cons-cell ... As a special case, if cons-cell is nil, this function returns nil. Therefore, any list is a valid argument. An error is signaled if the argument is not a cons cell or nil.

> Function: cdr cons-cell ... As a special case, if cons-cell is nil, this function returns nil; therefore, any list is a valid argument. An error is signaled if the argument is not a cons cell or nil.

Scheme doesn't. Taking the CAR or CDR of nil is an error.

  CL-USER> (symbolp nil)
  T
  CL-USER> (atom nil)
  T
  CL-USER> (listp nil)
  T

  1 ]=> nil

  ;Unbound variable: nil

  1 ]=> (car ())

  ;The object (), passed as the first argument to car, is not the correct type.