Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!rice!news!gateley From: gateley@rice.edu (John Gateley) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: scheme [Re: What does an anti-perl look like] Message-ID: Date: 26 Jun 91 22:02:15 GMT References: <4582@optima.cs.arizona.edu> Sender: news@rice.edu (News) Organization: Rice University Lines: 57 In-Reply-To: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu's message of 26 Jun 91 07:29:17 GMT In article <4582@optima.cs.arizona.edu> gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman) writes: In article John Gateley writes: ] ]I mean that syntax is relatively unimportant. How can you say that syntax is unimportant when such a huge percentage of people who try lisp or scheme are turned off by the syntax? It is certainly important to them. It is a hindrance to the goal of getting more people to use the language, and it is a distraction for many people trying to use the language. Just because it isn't a problem for _you_ doesn't mean that it isn't a problem. Let me try and explain what I mean :^) and at the same time reinforce what a couple of later posts have already said. Many people don't like Lisp/Scheme true, but to blame it all or even majorly on the syntax is unfair. There are many features which require a different mindset: recursion instead of loops, first class functions, dynamic typing, macros etc. etc. etc. Among all these new features, I think the problem of learning an extremely simple syntax is the smallest of the challenge. The syntax is very regular, has very few special characters, and can be learned quickly. With a small amount of practice (and EVERY language requires a small amount, or more) the programs become understand, and those nasty little parens cease to be nasty. Any language feature that is unpalatable to large numbers of people is a misfeature. And calling it "relatively unimportant" isn't going to make it any less important to the people who are bothered by it. If you don't think a lot of people are seriously bothered by lisp syntax then you are mistaken. I bet that all the people who are bothered by it are much more bothered by some of the other features (which are semantic features). And, a lot of the problem here is being faced with something "new". For example, I put off learning emacs for the longest time, just because I hate learning new editors. Different commands, different styles etc. But, once I did, I really enjoyed it. Similarly Scheme/Lisp is something new to most people, and all it takes are a couple of changes to make them frustrated and go back to the old way of doing it. By the way, fancy editors may make it easier to balance parens when writing lisp, but they don't help much in reading it. I disagree VERY much with this statement. I do most of my code reading on a terminal in an emacs buffer so that I can use all the commands when needed. I very rarely print out Scheme code and look at it on paper. John gateley@rice.edu -- "I've thought the thoughts of little children and the thoughts of men I've thought the thoughts of stupid people who have never been so much in love as they should be and got confused too easily to fall in love again." The Residents and Renaldo and the Loaf