Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!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: 27 Jun 91 02:36:26 GMT References: <2714@amix.commodore.com> <591@smds.UUCP> Sender: news@rice.edu (News) Organization: Rice University Lines: 52 In-Reply-To: sw@smds.UUCP's message of 26 Jun 91 13:49:48 GMT In article <591@smds.UUCP> sw@smds.UUCP (Stephen E. Witham) writes: [Scheme is good, but not visually graspable] The problem with Lisp notation, for my "right brain", is that *every* *structure*looks*the*same*. It's all just forms with arguments. With C, there are visual differences between function definitions, variable declarations, [...] In Lisp or Scheme, in order to tell what type of thing something is, you have to look at the word at the beginning of the expression or special form it's in, know what types of arguments that form takes, and then count down through the arguments. [...] My main point was, anybody who can say "just syntax" is either ignoring the issue of visual clarity, or they have parsers and reference manuals built into their corneas. Perceptual simplicity is hard to produce, and Lisp takes a simplistic approach to simplicity. For me (but of course I am one of those strange Scheme people :^), the problem is exactly the same but in the other direction. When I look at languages with more conventional syntax, I have to go through the same contortions you do. I drag the manual out etc. I accept what you are saying, but I don't think it implies write-onlyness (perhaps the problem here is that to me, write-onlyness is a global property which states that it is ALWAYS hard to read programs in a particular langauge as opposed to initially hard). It seems to me, also, that people do have parsers and reference manuals in their corneas. Consider reading - do you spell out the words letter by letter and then parse them into a single word? Or do you get the "gestalt" all at once? But this is getting much too philosophical and outside my field :^). I still think that Scheme/Lisp style syntax is a viable alternative for more conventional syntaxes(syntaci?). With any syntax there is going to be an initial period where it seems write-only, and I don't see that this period is any longer for Scheme/Lisp than other languages (and my personal experience indicates it is shorter). I think the general idea of "write-onlyness" for Scheme comes from the amazing amount of languages with more conventional syntax, the extra expressive power available, and a sort of "social inertia" to new things. 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