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From: mac@uvacs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: lisp
Message-ID: <1931@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Date: Tue, 1-Sep-87 10:56:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: uvacs.1931
Posted: Tue Sep  1 10:56:07 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Sep-87 01:03:23 EDT
References: <855@tjalk.cs.vu.nl> <2683@hoptoad.uucp> <1519@sol.ARPA> <4307@teddy.UUCP>
Organization: University of Virginia
Lines: 22
Xref: utgpu comp.lang.c:3925 comp.lang.lisp:402
Summary: syntax - who cares?

> (was: Compatibility with EBCDIC)
?

In article <4307@teddy.UUCP>, jpn@teddy.UUCP (John P. Nelson) writes:
> >                                                               Are lisps
> >REALLY so diverse (disclaimer: I known nothing about lisp except that it 
> >is written using Lots of Insipid Silly Parentheses :-) )  that they don't
> >even accept a mutual subset of the language?

This is the usual reaction of non-LISP programmers.  I've used half a
dozen dialects, none of which have the same syntax for defining
functions.  And that's the main effect of a LISP program! 

Syntax is one of the principal concerns of e.g., Basic, Pascal, C, PL1,
Ada.  That's what most programmers spend most time on. 

In LISP, however, we don't care about syntax.  If we don't like it, we
rewire it.  We're more interested in semantics.  This where the
differences among LISPs become interesting.  We sometimes rewire the
evaluator and builtin functions when we don't like the way they work. 
Dynamic binding and interpretation make this easy.  Especially by
accident.