Re: A syntax of minimal commitment

On 2007-05-16 03:05:49 +0100, Kent M Pitman <pitman@xxxxxxxxxxx> said:

The issue isn't that special-purpose notations and representations
aren't better for a great many purposes. It's that special-purpose
notations and representations aren't better for all purposes. And
so, since Lisp is built for flexibility, it's better to just let
s-expressions be themselves, and to let other things be other things.

I think I disagree (or for the purposes of this article I disagree): I think special-purpose notations and representations are always better. *However* they also impose an enormous cost: any time you want to talk about a new thing, you need a new special-purpose notation, and you have to implement essentially an entirely new language, and that means you never do that because it's so expensive. So actually they're not better in one crucial sense, which is economics.

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