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LOOP is a good example of syntax creeping its way into Lisp (defclass, not all that much IMO). As a counterexample that almost makes LOOP syntax look quaint, c
by gamache 17y ago
LOOP is a good example of syntax creeping its way into Lisp (defclass, not all that much IMO).
As a counterexample that almost makes LOOP syntax look quaint, consider Perl regexes. That is some syntax right there.
- lispm 17y agoCommon Lisp has more than 30 special syntactic constructs: block, catch, eval-when, LET, ..., unwind-protect. It has probably more than a hundred macros that implement syntax: DEFUN, LOOP, DEFMACRO, WITH-OPEN-FILE, DEFPACKAGE, PPRINT-LOGICAL-BLOCK, HANDLER-CASE, ... It has various basic syntactic elements like function lambda lists, macro lambda lists, etc. It has FORMAT string syntax. I'm not trying to win a contest with PERL and its syntax, but thinking that Common Lisp has almost no syntax is misguided. As I mentioned, in Common Lisp much of the syntax is implemented on top of s-expressions. Stuff like regexp syntax is implemented in Common Lisp libraries. Like this one: http://weitz.de/cl-ppcre/ http://weitz.de/cl-ppcre/ .