5 ms·

IMO, by far the most confusing thing about lisp syntax is not code data duality, but instead that when you actually dive into the specs for these languages, its

IMO, by far the most confusing thing about lisp syntax is not code data duality, but instead that when you actually dive into the specs for these languages, its actually still really complicated and full of edge cases. A "toy" lisp can be simple sure, but "real" lisps aren't.

ChrisSD 6y ago
The formal Scheme syntax spec is, what?, a few pages. Far smaller than any other "real" language I'm aware.
- garmaine 6y ago
  Real schemes are much more complicated. I think he’s talking about Common Lisp though.
- EE84M3i 6y ago
  I'm not too familiar with scheme, but syntax seems to be at least a few dozen pages here? www.r6rs.org/final/r6rs.pdf Also compare https://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/r5rs_9.html https://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/r5rs_9.html and e.g. https://docs.python.org/3/reference/grammar.html https://docs.python.org/3/reference/grammar.html which I would consider a relatively syntactically rich language.
  - shakna 6y ago
    R6RS was the largest Scheme spec ever, and because of it the next one was actually reduced into two: R7RS-small (core-language) and R7RS-big (extended). The R7RS-small standard [0] has already been ratified. It is a similar size to R6RS as a document size, but the semantics are about 8 pages, and include a bunch of macros that you don't need to implement, but just copy and paste into your implementation. I'd say it's a similar sized grammar to Python's. [0] https://small.r7rs.org/attachment/r7rs.pdf https://small.r7rs.org/attachment/r7rs.pdf
  - donio 6y ago
    What I see is that the Scheme one is a lot more thorough and still shorter.
- Wezl 6y ago
  I enjoy lisp/scheme syntax, but I'm especially impressed by lua's simple, readable, flexible, whitespace-insensitive-but-whitespace-friendly syntax. It is a bit more complicated than scheme's, but more intuitive because you don't need to explain quasi-quoting and other lisp-specific stuff. https://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/manual.html#9 https://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/manual.html#9

ChrisSD 6y ago

The formal Scheme syntax spec is, what?, a few pages. Far smaller than any other "real" language I'm aware.

garmaine 6y ago
Real schemes are much more complicated. I think he’s talking about Common Lisp though.
EE84M3i 6y ago
I'm not too familiar with scheme, but syntax seems to be at least a few dozen pages here? www.r6rs.org/final/r6rs.pdf Also compare https://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/r5rs_9.html https://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/r5rs_9.html and e.g. https://docs.python.org/3/reference/grammar.html https://docs.python.org/3/reference/grammar.html which I would consider a relatively syntactically rich language.
- shakna 6y ago
  R6RS was the largest Scheme spec ever, and because of it the next one was actually reduced into two: R7RS-small (core-language) and R7RS-big (extended). The R7RS-small standard [0] has already been ratified. It is a similar size to R6RS as a document size, but the semantics are about 8 pages, and include a bunch of macros that you don't need to implement, but just copy and paste into your implementation. I'd say it's a similar sized grammar to Python's. [0] https://small.r7rs.org/attachment/r7rs.pdf https://small.r7rs.org/attachment/r7rs.pdf
- donio 6y ago
  What I see is that the Scheme one is a lot more thorough and still shorter.
Wezl 6y ago
I enjoy lisp/scheme syntax, but I'm especially impressed by lua's simple, readable, flexible, whitespace-insensitive-but-whitespace-friendly syntax. It is a bit more complicated than scheme's, but more intuitive because you don't need to explain quasi-quoting and other lisp-specific stuff. https://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/manual.html#9 https://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/manual.html#9