4 ms·

There are lisps without parens too, it's not strictly required for parsing and evaluation. I think the main purpose of parens is to highlight the syntax tree fo

There are lisps without parens too, it's not strictly required for parsing and evaluation. I think the main purpose of parens is to highlight the syntax tree for developer manipulations with macros

diggan 3y ago
> There are lisps without parens too Are there any that come close to the usage of lisps with proper s-expressions? I've seen them come and go, but no "lisp without parens" that seem to stick around for longer period. I guess that should say something? Maybe we just haven't found the right way of exposing it though. Personally, when I've given it a try, the indentation-based syntax always makes it hard to use without faults. Maybe it's just a "getting used to" thing, but it seems like a mistake to depend on invisible characters for syntax. FWIW, I hardly ever write macros (mostly use Clojure/Script), so not sure the main purpose of the parens is macro writing for me. S-expressions with something like parinfer just makes programming a lot more enjoyable and easy, especially compared to all the C-syntax-like languages.
- tehologist 3y ago
  I am pretty sure logo is mostly a lisp without parenthesis. I find it a lot more readable than most lisp dialects. I am not sure why it never caught on.
  - runlaszlorun 3y ago
    I was about to post exactly the same… haha. I’ve been doing a recent deep dive in languages as part of my own overly ambitious language attempt and only recently found out that Logo was in fact Lisp based. I’m guessing that the reason it might not have taken off is because, unfortunately, it was looked upon as a ‘kid language’. The goals of Papert and others seem a far cry from where tech has landed today. edit: for an egregious typo
  - mbork_pl 3y ago
    It is. A piece of trivia: AFAIR, you say SUM 2 3 in Logo to add two numbers, but [SUM 2 3 4] to add more. (Though I learned Logo more than three decades ago, so I might be mistaken.)
- samatman 3y ago
  > Are there any that come close to the usage of lisps with proper s-expressions? If you consider Julia a Lisp, which I would argue you should, it may be the most widely-used Lisp currently. The only way you'll see an s-expression is is to call Meta.show_sexpr. If you consider Dylan a Lisp, you should consider Julia a Lisp as well. If you don't consider Dylan a Lisp, I have to conclude that you consider the s-expressions to be part of the definition of a Lisp. Which isn't an unreasonable taxonomy, but isn't the one I use.
  - diggan 3y ago
    > If you consider Julia a Lisp Maybe, but would you consider Julia a Lisp without parentheses, which was the context here? Because after looking at their documentation (https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/methods/ https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/methods/ for example), it seems to have as many parens as any other lisp, just postfix notation rather than prefix notation, `f(Float32(2.0), 3.0)` vs `(f (Float32 2.0), 3.0)`. Arguing about what makes or doesn't a lisp is a conversation I don't think will lead to any useful results, I feel like that's ongoing since the 60s or something. Out of my league :)
    - samatman 3y ago
      Given you said > lisps with proper s-expressions It's off-putting for you to fly in and pretend to be surprised that Julia uses parentheses in a way consistent with other languages which are syntactically Algolic. Apologies for expecting a serious conversation, didn't know who I was dealing with.
      - diggan 3y ago
        The root context of the conversation you injected yourself into, was about lisps without parens. It's OK to misunderstand, but please don't blame me for your own misunderstanding. Have a nice day!

There are lisps without parens too, it's not strictly required for parsing and evaluation. I think the main purpose of parens is to highlight the syntax tree for developer manipulations with macros

diggan 3y ago

> There are lisps without parens too Are there any that come close to the usage of lisps with proper s-expressions? I've seen them come and go, but no "lisp without parens" that seem to stick around for longer period. I guess that should say something? Maybe we just haven't found the right way of exposing it though. Personally, when I've given it a try, the indentation-based syntax always makes it hard to use without faults. Maybe it's just a "getting used to" thing, but it seems like a mistake to depend on invisible characters for syntax. FWIW, I hardly ever write macros (mostly use Clojure/Script), so not sure the main purpose of the parens is macro writing for me. S-expressions with something like parinfer just makes programming a lot more enjoyable and easy, especially compared to all the C-syntax-like languages.

tehologist 3y ago
I am pretty sure logo is mostly a lisp without parenthesis. I find it a lot more readable than most lisp dialects. I am not sure why it never caught on.
- runlaszlorun 3y ago
  I was about to post exactly the same… haha. I’ve been doing a recent deep dive in languages as part of my own overly ambitious language attempt and only recently found out that Logo was in fact Lisp based. I’m guessing that the reason it might not have taken off is because, unfortunately, it was looked upon as a ‘kid language’. The goals of Papert and others seem a far cry from where tech has landed today. edit: for an egregious typo
- mbork_pl 3y ago
  It is. A piece of trivia: AFAIR, you say SUM 2 3 in Logo to add two numbers, but [SUM 2 3 4] to add more. (Though I learned Logo more than three decades ago, so I might be mistaken.)
samatman 3y ago
> Are there any that come close to the usage of lisps with proper s-expressions? If you consider Julia a Lisp, which I would argue you should, it may be the most widely-used Lisp currently. The only way you'll see an s-expression is is to call Meta.show_sexpr. If you consider Dylan a Lisp, you should consider Julia a Lisp as well. If you don't consider Dylan a Lisp, I have to conclude that you consider the s-expressions to be part of the definition of a Lisp. Which isn't an unreasonable taxonomy, but isn't the one I use.
- diggan 3y ago
  > If you consider Julia a Lisp Maybe, but would you consider Julia a Lisp without parentheses, which was the context here? Because after looking at their documentation (https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/methods/ https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/methods/ for example), it seems to have as many parens as any other lisp, just postfix notation rather than prefix notation, `f(Float32(2.0), 3.0)` vs `(f (Float32 2.0), 3.0)`. Arguing about what makes or doesn't a lisp is a conversation I don't think will lead to any useful results, I feel like that's ongoing since the 60s or something. Out of my league :)
  - samatman 3y ago
    Given you said > lisps with proper s-expressions It's off-putting for you to fly in and pretend to be surprised that Julia uses parentheses in a way consistent with other languages which are syntactically Algolic. Apologies for expecting a serious conversation, didn't know who I was dealing with.
    - diggan 3y ago
      The root context of the conversation you injected yourself into, was about lisps without parens. It's OK to misunderstand, but please don't blame me for your own misunderstanding. Have a nice day!