3 ms·

Since the point of s-expression syntax/homoiconicity is macros, I'm surprised to not see any mention of them in the feature list linked here. Does BLisp support

• andyferris 5y ago
  Another reason for "code as data" is to enable (safe) remote code execution via RPC. For example you may want to query a database with a custom filter predicate function. If you pass one of BLisp's `Pure` functions across the wire, the database could execute the function with relative safety (compared with using `eval` with a string, or whatever). I find it frustrating that almost all popular languages lack any safe facility for this, so people have to create some limited query schema (with it's own custom wire encoding and mini-interpretter), or instantiate a sandbox for a non-pure language like Lua and eval a string, or else invent their own fully-blown programming language along the lines of BLisp.
  • bvrmn 5y ago
    I don't see a difference between (eval s-expression) and eval("some code"). `eval` is inherently insecure without special restricted runtime. Pureness doesn't guarantee security.
  • elcritch 5y ago
    One side benefit of wasm appears to be enabling this scenario, but across many languages. The client gets to use almost any language they want, it's fast, and the wasm engines let's the service define a very specific api surface.
• bmitc 5y ago
  > Since the point of s-expression syntax/homoiconicity is macros I don't equate S-expressions with macros. S-expressions make many things easier, including: simple and regular but expressive syntax, expressive function and variable names with basically any character sequence allowed, copy and paste-able code that just works, easy automatic code formatting.