5 ms·

This seems like an easy fix, re-release LISP with cleaner syntax. Lexers have come so far this seems like an easy fix. I can't say i've ever read the opinion t

This seems like an easy fix, re-release LISP with cleaner syntax. Lexers have come so far this seems like an easy fix. I can't say i've ever read the opinion that LISP's syntax allows more expressive programming; rather LISP itself allows more expressive programming at the tradeoff of the syntax.

Kamq 4y ago
> re-release LISP with cleaner syntax. A lot of the flexibility of lisp relies on there being no difference between a list of symbols and code (for, example, this is how the entire macro system works). Function calls being inside the parentheses (and, really, all language constructs just being lists of symbols) is generally what people mean when they say the syntax throws people. These two things are at odds. You could go with Racket's method of letting people use alternate delimiters, but that's a fairly trivial reader macro in common lisp and probably not worth releasing a language over.
- charcircuit 4y ago
  The macro system can just work with an AST instead of a list.
  - Kamq 4y ago
    Plenty of successors to lisp have tried that. They gunk up the whole experience.
    - bslatkin 4y ago
      Let me know if you'd like to give it a shot to see how gunky it is!
      - Kamq 4y ago
        I mean, I'd be down to try. Best I've seen so far (outside of lisp) is elixir, but it really bogs down the entire thing by requiring a bunch of extra information and metadata that common lisp can infer by position and an extra layer of indirection.
        bslatkin 4y ago
        Contact form here: https://quil.la/FVZ3PMZC https://quil.la/FVZ3PMZC Thanks!
coldtea 4y ago
>I can't say i've ever read the opinion that LISP's syntax allows more expressive programming; rather LISP itself allows more expressive programming at the tradeoff of the syntax. The conventional idea from LISPers is the other way around: LISP's syntax allows for more expressive programming, because code and data are isomorphic (so, macros and rewriting, etc.), and any function you make looks (and is, and behaves) as "first class" as any native one. LISP's syntax is also said to be a better and more concise way than JSON (and or course XML) to describe arbitrary hierarchical structures.
patrickmay 4y ago
There is no cleaner syntax than Lisp's. It is essential to Lisp's expressivity.
- naasking 4y ago
  O-expressions seem pretty good.
kazinator 4y ago
Adding different syntax to Lisp has been tried many times. No attempt has ever succeeded. Lisp users basically rejected all those systems, and they didn't gain any traction in bringing new users into Lisp. The first attempt was Lisp 2. This doesn't refer to Lisp-2 (two namespaces for variables and functions) but to a follow-up to Lisp 1.5, which was tried in the 1960's. Lisp 2, IIRC, featured an Algol-like syntax, with types, for speeding up numeric processing. It went nowhere. In the early 1970's, Vaughan Pratt (of "Pratt parser" fame, I think) created CGOL. That also went nowhere. After that we can identify numerous other things in that vein. Here we are today and most people using Lisp still have it (looking (like) this).
chlorion 4y ago
IMO the thing that makes lisp so powerful is the ability to extend the syntax, and this is only possible because the syntax is represented as a list. When your syntax can be manipulated like data (in this case lists), macros become regular functions operating on regular data, the data just happens to be syntax in this case. I can take a struct definition for example and use regular, built-in list manipulation functions to walk the definition and transform it into whatever I want. In something like Rust we can also run macros on struct definitions, but in that case you operate on a token stream, and need specialized libraries and functions to do meaningful transformations. It ends up being much more difficult but still pretty powerful. Super powered macros is what makes lisp "lispy" to me and the "abnormal" syntax is required for that, so I do think the syntax is what makes is uniquely expressive.

Kamq 4y ago

> re-release LISP with cleaner syntax. A lot of the flexibility of lisp relies on there being no difference between a list of symbols and code (for, example, this is how the entire macro system works). Function calls being inside the parentheses (and, really, all language constructs just being lists of symbols) is generally what people mean when they say the syntax throws people. These two things are at odds. You could go with Racket's method of letting people use alternate delimiters, but that's a fairly trivial reader macro in common lisp and probably not worth releasing a language over.

charcircuit 4y ago
The macro system can just work with an AST instead of a list.
- Kamq 4y ago
  Plenty of successors to lisp have tried that. They gunk up the whole experience.
  - bslatkin 4y ago
    Let me know if you'd like to give it a shot to see how gunky it is!
    - Kamq 4y ago
      I mean, I'd be down to try. Best I've seen so far (outside of lisp) is elixir, but it really bogs down the entire thing by requiring a bunch of extra information and metadata that common lisp can infer by position and an extra layer of indirection.
      - bslatkin 4y ago
        Contact form here: https://quil.la/FVZ3PMZC https://quil.la/FVZ3PMZC Thanks!

coldtea 4y ago

>I can't say i've ever read the opinion that LISP's syntax allows more expressive programming; rather LISP itself allows more expressive programming at the tradeoff of the syntax. The conventional idea from LISPers is the other way around: LISP's syntax allows for more expressive programming, because code and data are isomorphic (so, macros and rewriting, etc.), and any function you make looks (and is, and behaves) as "first class" as any native one. LISP's syntax is also said to be a better and more concise way than JSON (and or course XML) to describe arbitrary hierarchical structures.

patrickmay 4y ago

There is no cleaner syntax than Lisp's. It is essential to Lisp's expressivity.

naasking 4y ago
O-expressions seem pretty good.

kazinator 4y ago

Adding different syntax to Lisp has been tried many times. No attempt has ever succeeded. Lisp users basically rejected all those systems, and they didn't gain any traction in bringing new users into Lisp. The first attempt was Lisp 2. This doesn't refer to Lisp-2 (two namespaces for variables and functions) but to a follow-up to Lisp 1.5, which was tried in the 1960's. Lisp 2, IIRC, featured an Algol-like syntax, with types, for speeding up numeric processing. It went nowhere. In the early 1970's, Vaughan Pratt (of "Pratt parser" fame, I think) created CGOL. That also went nowhere. After that we can identify numerous other things in that vein. Here we are today and most people using Lisp still have it (looking (like) this).

chlorion 4y ago

IMO the thing that makes lisp so powerful is the ability to extend the syntax, and this is only possible because the syntax is represented as a list. When your syntax can be manipulated like data (in this case lists), macros become regular functions operating on regular data, the data just happens to be syntax in this case. I can take a struct definition for example and use regular, built-in list manipulation functions to walk the definition and transform it into whatever I want. In something like Rust we can also run macros on struct definitions, but in that case you operate on a token stream, and need specialized libraries and functions to do meaningful transformations. It ends up being much more difficult but still pretty powerful. Super powered macros is what makes lisp "lispy" to me and the "abnormal" syntax is required for that, so I do think the syntax is what makes is uniquely expressive.