4 ms·
You're barking up the wrong tree, pure s-exprs are a raw expression of the AST. A much better argument would be to point to all the damn quoting operators in m
by blasdel 17y ago
You're barking up the wrong tree, pure s-exprs are a raw expression of the AST.
A much better argument would be to point to all the damn quoting operators in most Lisps, which are most definitely syntax (sugar, even).
- dkersten 17y agoOh, good point, thanks! And built-in reader macros.. But really, even pure s-exprs are just one possible textual representation f an AST. Hell, XML is a valid representation too. Anything thats a representation of something follows rules as to how its represented and if it has rules, then its got syntax. But.. you're right, arguing about the s-exprs part isn't going to get me anywhere. The Lisp weenies* will always believe Lisp has no syntax (blatantly ignoring the quoting operator which you mentioned) and nobody else really cares, so... * I'm not trying to knock Lisp; I actually quite like Scheme and Clojure (and probably would like Common Lisp too, if I'd spent more time with it). I just think this whole "it has no syntax, yet I have to follow these precise syntactical rules" stuff is stupid. ;-)