Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Virtues(?) of Lisp syntax
Keywords: syntax words,functions
Message-ID: <3435@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 21 Sep 90 18:52:05 GMT
References: <3427@skye.ed.ac.uk> <3781@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 32

In article <3781@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>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.

Come come yourself.  Haven't you ever seen that sort of thing
done for Lisp?  If not, check out _The Little Lisper_ sometime.

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

That too.

>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_.

Just so.