On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 8:40 AM, Chas Emerick <cemer...@snowtide.com> wrote: > > On Mar 6, 2011, at 11:53 AM, Ken Wesson wrote: > >> On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 11:00 AM, Chas Emerick <cemer...@snowtide.com> wrote: >>> 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 >> >> Ah, but what, pray tell, *is* "the native notation" of a domain? > > Whatever the specialists in that domain say it is.
Bzzzt, sorry. Their choice seems as arbitrary as any other, much of the time. Ask yourself this: if aliens from another planet are at about the same level of development as us, are they likely to be using the same or a closely similar notation? (Modulo different glyphs and words -- is the syntax going to be close?) >> And >> why are you so sure it's almost never sexps? Sexps are a natural fit >> to at least one other domain I can think of: mathematics. And if only >> mathematicians used sexps it would be easy to generate things like >> automated proof-vetters and the like using lisp. :) > > The fact that mathematicians appear to disagree (viz. Mathematica, MatLab, > fortress, etc) should be taken into account. And yet they also use TeX, sometimes conversationally. -- 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
