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> structure I don't see the connection of this kind of structure, with 'iconicity'. Iconicity is usually more concerned with the form of a symbolic shape and t

by lispm 7y ago

> structure I don't see the connection of this kind of structure, with 'iconicity'. Iconicity is usually more concerned with the form of a symbolic shape and the connection to its meaning. Structural aspects can play a role, but they are still connected to some meaning (which connects it to the human understanding). Source code in a text editor is not a 'picture' or 'shape' or 'icon'.

galaxyLogic 7y ago
Source-code in a text-editor has a shape. Lisp source-code in a text-editor has a structure expressed with parentheses. 'icon' refers to “likeness, image, portrait”. The structure of Lisp source-code is the same as the structure of the internal representation of the same program produced from that source-code which your Lisp program can see and manipulate. There is "likeness", meaning iconicity, between the two representations, because the two structures are "alike".
- kazinator 7y ago
  Even if that fits under Doug McIlroy's definition of "homoiconic" (which sits in a paywalled 1960 paper), the C preprocessor probably also meets the definition, as do function definitions in Bash. "Homoiconic" is not a word that denotes something special about Lisp that separates it from low-brow hacks. The authors of TRAC were familiar with Ilroy's paper and its neologism, and cheerfully applied it term to their purely text-based system. Either they didn't understand the word, or else it really does cover that kind of thing.
- lispm 7y ago
  > Source-code in a text-editor has a shape. not an iconic shape > 'icon' refers to “likeness, image, portrait”. source code is none of that. it's text.
  - galaxyLogic 7y ago
    Source-code is not only text. It has structure which must follow specific syntactic rules. It is not free-form text like what we are writing here. It has structure which is the same thing as saying it has 'shape'. And that shape "forms" an image, is iconic, for the internal structure of the program which you see when you manipulate it within your Lisp-program. An image is not the same thing as the thing being imaged. Ceci'nest pa une pipe. But you can see the structure of the thing being represented by looking at the image, by the "icon", why, because the structure of the image is (to a large degree) same as the structure of the thing being imaged. Similarly the syntactic structure of Lisp source-code let's us see the structure of the program that is generated by that source-code. It is iconic. It is iconic to the thing it represents, the program, which in a sense is the same thing, just a different, but structurally isomorphic representation of the program itself. It is homoiconic.
    - lispm 7y ago
      > It has structure which is the same thing as saying it has 'shape'. Not really. Shape is a distinct visual quality. > Similarly the syntactic structure of Lisp source-code let's us see the structure of the program that is generated by that source-code. I find that questionable. > It is iconic. It is iconic to the thing it represents, the program, which in a sense is the same thing, just a different, but structurally isomorphic representation of the program itself. It is homoiconic. No, 'iconic' is concerned with different things. > but structurally isomorphic representation of the program itself That has very little to do iconic representation. Seeing textual source code as an iconic representation of the machine representation is stretching the concept beyond its intended meaning (about shape, form, graphical representation, ...).

by lispm 7y ago

galaxyLogic 7y ago

Source-code in a text-editor has a shape. Lisp source-code in a text-editor has a structure expressed with parentheses. 'icon' refers to “likeness, image, portrait”. The structure of Lisp source-code is the same as the structure of the internal representation of the same program produced from that source-code which your Lisp program can see and manipulate. There is "likeness", meaning iconicity, between the two representations, because the two structures are "alike".

kazinator 7y ago
Even if that fits under Doug McIlroy's definition of "homoiconic" (which sits in a paywalled 1960 paper), the C preprocessor probably also meets the definition, as do function definitions in Bash. "Homoiconic" is not a word that denotes something special about Lisp that separates it from low-brow hacks. The authors of TRAC were familiar with Ilroy's paper and its neologism, and cheerfully applied it term to their purely text-based system. Either they didn't understand the word, or else it really does cover that kind of thing.
lispm 7y ago
> Source-code in a text-editor has a shape. not an iconic shape > 'icon' refers to “likeness, image, portrait”. source code is none of that. it's text.
- galaxyLogic 7y ago
  Source-code is not only text. It has structure which must follow specific syntactic rules. It is not free-form text like what we are writing here. It has structure which is the same thing as saying it has 'shape'. And that shape "forms" an image, is iconic, for the internal structure of the program which you see when you manipulate it within your Lisp-program. An image is not the same thing as the thing being imaged. Ceci'nest pa une pipe. But you can see the structure of the thing being represented by looking at the image, by the "icon", why, because the structure of the image is (to a large degree) same as the structure of the thing being imaged. Similarly the syntactic structure of Lisp source-code let's us see the structure of the program that is generated by that source-code. It is iconic. It is iconic to the thing it represents, the program, which in a sense is the same thing, just a different, but structurally isomorphic representation of the program itself. It is homoiconic.
  - lispm 7y ago
    > It has structure which is the same thing as saying it has 'shape'. Not really. Shape is a distinct visual quality. > Similarly the syntactic structure of Lisp source-code let's us see the structure of the program that is generated by that source-code. I find that questionable. > It is iconic. It is iconic to the thing it represents, the program, which in a sense is the same thing, just a different, but structurally isomorphic representation of the program itself. It is homoiconic. No, 'iconic' is concerned with different things. > but structurally isomorphic representation of the program itself That has very little to do iconic representation. Seeing textual source code as an iconic representation of the machine representation is stretching the concept beyond its intended meaning (about shape, form, graphical representation, ...).