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To me, the idea of a low-level[1] language with S-expression syntax seems appealing because it is both pretty fundamental machine-wise, and syntax-wise. Why not
by Dewie 12y ago
To me, the idea of a low-level[1] language with S-expression syntax seems appealing because it is both pretty fundamental machine-wise, and syntax-wise. Why not have a Lispy language as an underlying fundament? The syntax is both about/almost as simple as it gets, and the performance of the code is also more transparent. Not to mention that metaprogramming either using itself or a higher-level language seems more promising than the conventional low-level languages.
[1] "systems language" has become too overloaded for my tastes.
- kazinator 12y agoHere is the thing: why not bootstrap that using a real Lisp though that does have GC? That is to say, you can have a notation which denotes some "systems" language that doesn't have GC and is static and whatnot. But the meta-programming over that notation (like macros) can be processed by a Lisp that does have GC. For instance, why make the compile-time code like macro-expanders suffer along with no GC? Of course that's been done. E.g. assemblers boostrapped using Lisp, and projects like ThinLisp. "While all of Common Lisp is available at system build time. the Lisp dialect available in production is a carefully crafted subset of Common Lisp. [http://www.thinlisp.org http://www.thinlisp.org] (Maybe Dale is actually structured similarly; so that perhaps "GC-less" refers to run-time only, not build time.)
- Dewie 12y agoSounds good to me.
- abecedarius 12y agoNot to mention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PreScheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PreScheme.