Subject: Re: Why learn Lisp From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 28 Aug 2002 16:10:10 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3239539810758390@naggum.no> * Dorai Sitaram | I think the Lisp syntax is plenty readable myself, but I also don't think | its syntax is really as terribly minimal as it could be. Some years ago, I spent considerable time playing with the reader in order to learn how it worked and how much I could change it without removing the Lisp feel. I modified the list reader to post-process them such that, e.g., `(x <- y)´ and `(y -> x)´ would transform to `(setf x y)´, reintroduced the `=>´ from Scheme's `cond´ to pass the value of the conditional to the body, got rid of `aref´ with `[array index ...]´ and sundry other minor changes. Most of these were dead ends, but I still kind of like the infix -> and <-. (It looks even better with an assortment of Unicode arrows.) | If Lisp keywords were not written as words fashioned from an alphabet but as | dedicated symbols (say as Japanese kanji), with all other words being | alphabet-based, then the wrench of going from C to Lisp may not be felt as | much. You can do an amazing amount of syntactic harm with Unicode. I have all sorts of cute symbols available on my keyboard, now. Real less-than-or-equal signs, open and filled triangles for brackets and bullets and open and filled circles and squares for bullets, and a little greek and, um. Syntactic harm. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.