3 ms·

How would an algol language with sexp syntax differ from scheme?

• mahmud 18y ago
  It wouldn't have any of the following: First class continuations. First class lexical closures. Automatic garbage collection. An explicit Eval function. Explicit READER and PRINTER functions for builtin parsing and serialization of code and data (not sure if Scheme requires these, but they make a lisp Lisp) A full numeric tower. Hygienic macros (or any macro for that matter; CPP doesn't count) Symbols as datatypes. An interactive REPL. Tail-call elimination. Variable-argument procedures (with no kludges; va_list, va_start, va_end is not the way to do it.) Delayed evaluation constructs. Multiple-value returns. Quoted forms (a sexp syntax does not necessarily mean QUOTE is available.) We Lisp2 hackers might pick on Scheme for its Algolishness, but that doesn't make it any less of an excellent language. Scheme is a purists wet-dream come true and a fine Lisp dialect, albeit an algolish one ;-)