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> it is, in fact, the major failure of Lisp. I won't even mention macros, but I'm curious as to why you think s-expressions are a failure? It's one of the thin
by apgwoz 19y ago
> it is, in fact, the major failure of Lisp.
I won't even mention macros, but I'm curious as to why you think s-expressions are a failure? It's one of the things I like BEST about Lisp.
- tptacek 19y agoI like s-expressions too, but --- and I'm asserting this without a shred of evidence, appealing to the better angels of your common sense --- most developers, Peter Norvig notably included, believe other languages benefit from having more notation. For one thing, to a point, increasing the level of notational "richness" of a language improves comprehensibility of code.
- gruseom 19y agoJust curious - has Norvig said that explicitly or (like Steele and Gabriel and Weinreb and others of that generation) has he just been pragmatic?
- tptacek 19y agoI'm referring to Norvig's comments on Arc, which suggest more notation (albeit notation that remains isomorphic to sexps).
- eb 19y agoWhere/when did Norvig comment on Arc?
- tptacek 19y agohttp://www.archub.org/arcsug.txt http://www.archub.org/arcsug.txt
- abstractbill 19y agoI don't see much there to suggest Norvig is a big fan of adding syntax to Lisp. In fact you could read "This seemed to satisfy the infix advocates" as an expression of the opposite viewpoint.
- tptacek 19y agoReasonable people could disagree, unless/until Norvig clarifies, but I'm going to take his apparent conversion to Python as evidence that Norvig is not a sexpr fanatic.