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You really don't get it do you. An s-expression doesn't have to be evaled to be read. I just keep getting downvoted here. It's like offering a machine gun to a

You really don't get it do you. An s-expression doesn't have to be evaled to be read. I just keep getting downvoted here. It's like offering a machine gun to a caveman and getting clubbed to death with it.

coldtea 12y ago
>An s-expression doesn't have to be evaled to be read. Yeah, so you get a serialization format that's the same as your code. Big deal. And you have to live with your code having the same look as a serialization format. Even McCarthy wanted to give Lisp a proper syntax. >It's like offering a machine gun to a caveman and getting clubbed to death with it. More like it's coming to Paul Graham's house to tell him all about this new wonderful Lisp thing thing you've discovered. I mean, this is HN, what makes you think those that answered you don't already know and/or use Lisp and its homoiconicity properties? Being used as a serialization format is perhaps the least interesting and useful property of Lisp code.
- jtheory 12y ago
  Okay, this suggests I'm not confused; there's just no argument given. > Yeah, so you get a serialization format that's the same as your code. Big deal. There's no reason this would be automatically a "good thing" -- a serialization format that is also valid source code -- it's just a thing. It's good to have a clean path from data structure to serialized data and back again; but if the obvious way to re-create the data structure (exec the code) has a huge security flaw built into it, that's no longer a clean path. Human-readable serialized formats are nice; but guidelines on "readable" for a data structure vs. "readable" for full-power source code are not the same -- and "compact" is also strongly good for serialization formats, but not nearly so important for source code.
- nickbauman 12y ago
  > Yeah, so you get a serialization format that's the same as your code. Big deal. Oh, but it is! Making a massive compute grid can be done with just a few lines of code if your language is homoiconic. If you have to come up with a protocol and a data transfer format, well you have some work to do then.

coldtea 12y ago

>An s-expression doesn't have to be evaled to be read. Yeah, so you get a serialization format that's the same as your code. Big deal. And you have to live with your code having the same look as a serialization format. Even McCarthy wanted to give Lisp a proper syntax. >It's like offering a machine gun to a caveman and getting clubbed to death with it. More like it's coming to Paul Graham's house to tell him all about this new wonderful Lisp thing thing you've discovered. I mean, this is HN, what makes you think those that answered you don't already know and/or use Lisp and its homoiconicity properties? Being used as a serialization format is perhaps the least interesting and useful property of Lisp code.

jtheory 12y ago
Okay, this suggests I'm not confused; there's just no argument given. > Yeah, so you get a serialization format that's the same as your code. Big deal. There's no reason this would be automatically a "good thing" -- a serialization format that is also valid source code -- it's just a thing. It's good to have a clean path from data structure to serialized data and back again; but if the obvious way to re-create the data structure (exec the code) has a huge security flaw built into it, that's no longer a clean path. Human-readable serialized formats are nice; but guidelines on "readable" for a data structure vs. "readable" for full-power source code are not the same -- and "compact" is also strongly good for serialization formats, but not nearly so important for source code.
nickbauman 12y ago
> Yeah, so you get a serialization format that's the same as your code. Big deal. Oh, but it is! Making a massive compute grid can be done with just a few lines of code if your language is homoiconic. If you have to come up with a protocol and a data transfer format, well you have some work to do then.