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From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Virtues(?) of Lisp syntax
Keywords: syntax words,functions
Message-ID: <3781@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Date: 18 Sep 90 06:46:13 GMT
References: <3368@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1350030@otter.hpl.hp.com> <3408@skye.ed.ac.uk> <3427@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 27

In article <3427@skye.ed.ac.uk>, jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
> In article <3450@syma.sussex.ac.uk> aarons@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Aaron
> Sloman) writes:

> >It wasn't till I read this remark of Jeff's that I realised that one
> >reason I don't like Lisp is that, apart from "(" and ")", Lisp
> >doesn't help one to distinguish syntax words and function names.

> Actually, Pop-11 doesn't do much along those lines either.
> It's not like it uses a different font for them (cf Algol).

Come come.  All that's needed for that is a suitable vgrind(1) description.
Surely there must be one available already; Pop-11 syntax is close enough
to Pascal/Modula syntax for it to work.

(I must admit that Interlisp-D's editors did a nice job of displaying
functions with "keywords" and comments very clearly distinguished.)

I've been marking some 2nd year Pascal assignments recently, and have
come to the conclusion that Lisp programmers probably have _less_ trouble
with parentheses.  Pascal's precedence rules are so counterintuitive that
people seem to throw in lots of parentheses just because they're never
quite sure what Pascal will do to them if they're left out.  At least in
Lisp the rules are _simple_.

-- 
Heuer's Law:  Any feature is a bug unless it can be turned off.