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From: marti@mint.inf.ethz.ch (Robert Marti)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: scheme [Re: What does an anti-perl look like]
Message-ID: <29429@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
Date: 14 Jun 91 14:50:43 GMT
References: <1991Jun05.013632.3198@convex.com> <1991Jun05.220157.13416@convex.com> <OZ.91Jun12001150@ursa.ccs.yorku.ca> <505@data.UUCP>
Sender: news@neptune.inf.ethz.ch
Reply-To: marti@mint.inf.ethz.ch (Robert Marti)
Organization: Departement Informatik, ETH, Zurich
Lines: 24

In article <505@data.UUCP> kend@data.UUCP (Ken Dickey) writes:
>I *never* have to look at a language manual to use Scheme.
Apparently, you *never* use do-loops.  (Of course, using tail-recursion
is the preferred style, anyway ... )
 
>I *always* have to look at manuals for non-lisp-family languages.
I *never* have to look at a language manual to use C.  (I admit to
having a table of operator precedence pasted to my workstation,
though.
 
>Syntax should be trivial!
Syntax should make for (human-) readable code.  If you find that Lots
of Irrelevant Stupid Parenthesis make for readable code, fine.  I don't!
(I guess that makes me a wimp, huh?  But Real Programmers (TM) program
in FORTRAN, anyway ;-)

Note:  IMHO, Scheme has many strong points:  It's a small and orthogonal
language (first-class procedures, continuations).  However, its syntax
is definitely not one of them.

Robert Marti                      |  Phone:    +41 1 254 72 60
Institut fur Informationssysteme  |  FAX:      +41 1 262 39 73
ETH-Zentrum                       |  E-Mail:   marti@inf.ethz.ch
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