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I came across this code today, and do not understand why the author used the "and" in it. As far as I can tell, these two lines deliver the same results and have the same functionality. The variable initial-major-mode is defined in startup.el, and holds the value of the initial major mode (lisp-interaction-mode for the scratch buffer).

(funcall (and initial-major-mode))
(funcall initial-major-mode)

Am I missing some nuance why the "and" is useful or required in the code? The only thing I can think of is that it might be an easy way of protecting against a (funcall nil) error if the initial-major-mode is undefined. But since it's a system variable, I would guess that it is always defined?

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    I do not think it is used deliberately. It looks as if left over from debugging. I'm not aware of any way and could have any effect here.
    – user227
    Jul 23, 2016 at 9:45
  • In Emacs 24.5.1 2016-06-04 this string looks like (funcall initial-major-mode), so @lunaryorn are right.
    – Konstantin Morenko
    Jul 23, 2016 at 12:43

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I'm posting an "answer" just to clear the question. Everyone, including me when I posted the question, thinks that the "and" has no value, and might be a leftover from something.

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