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For me the most “woa” thing about LISP and its macros is that code is data, and data is code. The representation of a (nested) list is exactly the same as actua
by stingraycharles 4y ago
For me the most “woa” thing about LISP and its macros is that code is data, and data is code. The representation of a (nested) list is exactly the same as actual code, and using macros, I can manipulate it as such.
That is pretty profound, and I still have yet to find a language that just makes it so simple and elegant as with LISP.
- hajile 4y agoInteractive, live development in Common Lisp is also basically unknown outside of maybe smalltalk. Stuff like "hot reload" in Javascript development is not at all comparable.
- qohen 4y agoIf one is interested in Lisp macros, btw, a good (and quite readable) book that covers the subject is On Lisp [0], by Paul Graham. You can download it as a PDF from the author's site[1]. P.S. If you're looking for Lisp enlightenment experiences, actually read through the code snippets in the book -- spending a few minutes staring at 5 lines of macro code and then having understanding dawn on you will give you some of those experiences (at least in the small) :-) [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html