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From: andy@Theory.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme
Subject: Re: Virtues of Lisp syntax
Message-ID: <1990Sep5.221830.7506@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 5 Sep 90 22:18:30 GMT
References: <1990Aug26.205018.18067@cbnewsc.att.com> <1350028@otter.hpl.hp.com> <3368@skye.ed.ac.uk>
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In article <3368@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1350028@otter.hpl.hp.com> sfk@otter.hpl.hp.com (Steve Knight) writes:
>                                                    I think that Prolog
>makes the better job of it, having the advantage of being relational so
>that quoting rules aren't required, and providing a good infix/prefix/
>postfix operator system.

Prolog most definitely has quoting rules; case matters in obscure ways
and constants that begin with the wrong case have to be quoted.  The result
isn't simpler.

As to the advantages of infix/postfix/prefix syntax, I note that
operator arity is not limited to 1 and 2.  Again, prolog uses two
sytaxes of syntax to handle a case that is handled by one syntax in
lisp.  (I'm referring to the opr(i,j,k,l,m) vs a <- b , c business.)

-andy
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