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From: zmacx07@doc.ic.ac.uk (Simon E Spero)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme
Subject: Re: Virtues of Lisp syntax
Message-ID: <2262@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk>
Date: 12 Sep 90 16:32:11 GMT
References: <33709@cup.portal.com> <1990Sep10.091911.20877@hellgate.utah.edu> <11048@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM> <1990Sep12.021238.6859@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
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Reply-To: zmacx07@doc.ic.ac.uk (Simon E Spero)
Organization: Imperial College Department of Computing
Lines: 17


    One thing that a lot of people seem to be ignoring is the way that all 
modern lisps make it so easy to augment lisp's syntax to suit the job at
hand. When it comes to building complex mathematical expressions, prefix 
notation is absolutely hopeless. 

    When you can add a simple operator-precedence parser and attach it to a 
macro in a few minutes, there is no need to bother writing it out long-hand. 
Surely the main reason lisp has survived so long is it's ability to take on 
and mimic the special features of newer languages that evolve around it.

Simon
--
zmacx07@uk.ac.ic.doc | sispero@cix.co.uk |    ..!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!cix!sispero
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