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People who actually get Lisp understand that S-expressions and surface syntax⁰ are orthogonal. "Ubiquitous parentheses" are one way to represent them. Sweet e

People who actually get Lisp understand that S-expressions and surface syntax⁰ are orthogonal. "Ubiquitous parentheses" are one way to represent them. Sweet expressions are another. There is zero Lisper on this planet that think about "Ubiquitous parentheses" as the best possible syntax. Not even the seemingly fanatics of Lisp's "regular syntax". Proof: no one in her right mind (not even you) would prefer (quote X), or even (' x) over 'x. 'x is an irregularity that makes the whole thing terser, while using up less cognitive power. In other words, it's better. Now why stop there? You could try and remove more parentheses by using a tab syntax, or introduce a few other irregularities, or both. There's a good chance that we could come up with something better than the currently widely accepted surface syntax. Conclusion: it's perfectly possible to get Lisp and not surrender to it's standard syntax, because it may just not be the best. Besides, I'd think twice before suggesting that David A. Wheeler don't deeply understand Lisp. Now, knowing that the standard syntax is the only widely used one, one of course have to get over it to have a chance of understanding lisp. But if you only meant that, You hardly said anything at all¹. [0] When you wrote "syntax", I assumed you talked about surface syntax. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/ Edit (addendum): By the way, I'm surprised this issue isn't settled yet by structure editing. With a structure editor, programmers could choose the surface syntax they like independently of the underlying S-expression tree. (Incidentally, this could apply to any language, though with more difficulties.)

Zak 16y ago
I'm sure David A. Wheeler gets Lisp - probably more than most of us. The creators of alternate syntax proposals almost always do, but they're usually not the intended market for their own proposals. Alternate syntax proposals are almost always written by Lisp proponents who want to make Lisp more accessible to others. In the article, Wheeler says the goal is to "provide a better notation that others can read". To quote pg: "Historically, languages designed for other people to use have been bad"[0]. I've found that to be true with most alternate syntax proposals I've read, including this one. I do not find it as readable as the original Scheme, nor is it as readable as Python. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html
sedachv 16y ago
"Now why stop there? You could try and remove more parentheses by using a tab syntax, or introduce a few other irregularities, or both. There's a good chance that we could come up with something better than the currently widely accepted surface syntax." The constraint is that the grammar of the resulting syntax has to be capable of expressing everything expressable by S-expressions, has to be unambiguous, and it has to be pretty-printable back into a canonical form. The last point itself is pretty hard to do, but if you actually look at the grammars of a lot of programming languages, very few of them aren't ambiguous!

Zak 16y ago

I'm sure David A. Wheeler gets Lisp - probably more than most of us. The creators of alternate syntax proposals almost always do, but they're usually not the intended market for their own proposals. Alternate syntax proposals are almost always written by Lisp proponents who want to make Lisp more accessible to others. In the article, Wheeler says the goal is to "provide a better notation that others can read". To quote pg: "Historically, languages designed for other people to use have been bad"[0]. I've found that to be true with most alternate syntax proposals I've read, including this one. I do not find it as readable as the original Scheme, nor is it as readable as Python. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html

sedachv 16y ago

"Now why stop there? You could try and remove more parentheses by using a tab syntax, or introduce a few other irregularities, or both. There's a good chance that we could come up with something better than the currently widely accepted surface syntax." The constraint is that the grammar of the resulting syntax has to be capable of expressing everything expressable by S-expressions, has to be unambiguous, and it has to be pretty-printable back into a canonical form. The last point itself is pretty hard to do, but if you actually look at the grammars of a lot of programming languages, very few of them aren't ambiguous!