From ... From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: RFC: Lisp/Scheme with less parentheses through Python-like significant indentation? Date: 2000/08/11 Message-ID: <3174983985849332@naggum.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 657129771 References: <3990E003.6EE78131@kurtz-fernhout.com> <399162BC.83ABDE69@kurtz-fernhout.com> <3991B8E4.B8CE44A2@kurtz-fernhout.com> <87hf8t55vk.fsf@piracy.red-bean.com> mail-copies-to: never Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@eunet.no X-Trace: oslo-nntp.eunet.no 965995189 13532 195.0.192.66 (11 Aug 2000 11:59:49 GMT) Organization: Naggum Software; vox: +47 8800 8879; fax: +47 8800 8601; http://naggum.no; http://naggum.net User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) Emacs/20.7 Mime-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: 11 Aug 2000 11:59:49 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp * Craig Brozefsky | I think the "common sense" understanding that parens are confusing | and intimidating to new users is utterly bogus. There _is_ empirical evidence that parentheses are used to mark something that is out of the ordinary and thus cause people to think of them as signs of something more complex than their absence. | Python was/is a pedagogical tool, and it's decision to make syntax | significant was based on that context. It was designed to teach new | CS students better habits for the formatting of code, by making a | standard formatting schema mandatory. Lisp already has | pretty-printers and editor support for encourgaing good formatting | habits. ... mumble ... languages to prove something ... mumble ... languages to do something ... [If you catch the reference, don't remind me.] #:Erik -- If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations.