Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma!aarons From: aarons@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Aaron Sloman) Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: Virtues of Lisp syntax Summary: Keyword arguments would make Lisp easier for some people to read Message-ID: <3492@syma.sussex.ac.uk> Date: 21 Sep 90 19:37:10 GMT References: <3368@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1990Sep18.014609.13607@cbnewsc.att.com> Organization: School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences, Sussex Univ. UK Lines: 40 Lawrence G. Mayka AT&T Bell Laboratories (lgm@cbnewsc.att.com) writes: > > Most complaints I've heard about Lisp syntax, from both novices and > regular users, boil down to the claim that the repetitive, > positionally dependent syntax of most Lisp constructs has insufficient > redundancy for easy recognition by the human eye. And for the system to provide compile-time help for the user who makes mistakes. > ....Repetition of > parentheses could be reduced by defining (e.g., via the macro > character facility) a character pair such as {} to be synonymous with > (). Positional dependency could be reduced simply by making greater > use of keywords (e.g., defining macros synonymous with common > constructs but taking keyword arguments instead of positional ones). > The difficulty some people have in reading Lisp is hence not intrinsic > to its syntax, but rather an accident of common practice. > If this sort of enhancement of redundancy and readability were done in some standard, generally agreed, way, then some of the main objections that I and others have to the lisp family of languages (Common Lisp, Scheme, T, ....) would go away. I _might_ even consider using T in place of Pop-11 one day??? Aaron Sloman, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, Univ of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QH, England EMAIL aarons@cogs.sussex.ac.uk or: aarons%uk.ac.sussex.cogs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk aarons%uk.ac.sussex.cogs%nsfnet-relay.ac.uk@relay.cs.net BITNET: aarons%uk.ac.sussex.cogs@uk.ac UUCP: ...mcvax!ukc!cogs!aarons or aarons@cogs.uucp