Re: How Lisp's Nested Notation Limits The Language's Utility

Joe Marshall wrote:
Joe Marshall wrote:
If the syntax is a problem, why haven't any alternative syntaxes taken
over for s-expressions?

I ask why alternative lisp syntaxes never took off,

You asked why "alternative syntaxes never took off". Nothing Lisp specific
so I cited several non-Lisp examples.

If you want a Lisp specific example then I'd say why did closures not take
off in BASIC? I think the answer is that BASIC programmers who wanted
something more learned a better tool...

--
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
The F#.NET Journal
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/fsharp_journal/?usenet
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Ruby performance woes
    ... are define in the same language. ... That results in a lot of circular definitions. ... subset of Lisp, that is defined in terms of something prior to ... The S-expressions are formed according to the following recursive rules. ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: Why dont people like lisp?
    ... writing the domain language as an S-exp ... different document types each with its own rudimentary syntax. ... My program had an embedded Lisp interpreter and worked by ... S-expressions in memory, and then eval'd them with the Lisp ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: Lisp/Unix impedance [a programming challenge]
    ... although Mac data instead of Lisp data in the specifics, ... > write a glue "script" that will transform the data. ... or awk as the best stdio filter depending on circumstances. ... poor substitute for s-expressions over that same flat text I/O, ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • S-Expressions (Was: Re: farewell bytecode, hello ascii)
    ... I'm not familiar with S-EXPS ... ... Anyway, yes, s-expressions are what Lisp uses ... Many modern software represents trees using XML. ...
    (comp.lang.misc)
  • Re: Why dont people like lisp?
    ... writing the domain language as an S-exp ... different document types each with its own rudimentary syntax. ... My program had an embedded Lisp interpreter and worked by ... S-expressions in memory, and then eval'd them with the Lisp ...
    (comp.lang.python)