On Mar 6, 2011, at 9:55 AM, Ken Wesson wrote: > On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 8:39 AM, Chas Emerick <cemer...@snowtide.com> wrote: >> No, you're exactly right. Leaving aside the obvious utility of being able >> to consume non-sexpr-structured content/data, there are plenty of domains >> for which s-expressions are not optimal, or even well-suited. > > An interesting opinion. I'd like to know which specific domains you > have in mind.
Rather than enumerate the places where sexprs are sub-optimal, it would save a *lot* of time to simply point out that: (a) Every general-purpose programming language notation is a poor substitute for the "native" notation of every domain (except perhaps for the building of systems using general-purpose programming languages, of course). (b) The history of lisps relative to other programming language traditions is such that multiple generations of practitioners in essentially every domain have developed computationally-suitable notations that have nothing to do with lisp, s-expressions, and so on. This is all in addition to the fact that text-based programming languages are themselves surely future relics. [1] Most systems used by practitioners outside of programming aren't textual, including those in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, or really any hard science; engineering, industrial design, and finance; all the way down to stuff like patterns for automated sewing/weaving machines and Lego Mindstorms. There are people pushing to make the membrane between programming and all other domains more permeable. Fortress[2] is an interesting example in this regard, as is a lot of the model driven architecture community. Cheers, - Chas [1] http://www.subtextual.org [2] http://projectfortress.sun.com/Projects/Community/blog/ParallelPrefixNotation -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
