Alex Martelli wrote:
> Ken Tilton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> ...
>
>>True but circular, because my very point is that () was a great design
>>choice in that it made macros possible and they made CL almost
>>infinitely extensible, while indentation-sensitivity was a mistaken
>>design choice because it makes for very clean code (I agree
>>wholeheartedly) but placed a ceiling on its expressiveness.
>
>
> Having to give functions a name places no "ceiling on expressiveness",
> any more than, say, having to give _macros_ a name.
>
>
>
>>As for:
>>
>>
>>> At a syntax-sugar
>>>level, for example, Lisp's choice to use parentheses as delimiter means
>>>it's undesirable, even unfeasible, to use the single character '(' as an
>>>ordinary identifier in a future release of the language.
>>
>>(defun |(| (aside) (format nil "Parenthetically speaking...~a." aside))
>>=> |(|
>>(|(| "your Lisp /is/ rusty.")
>>=> "Parenthetically speaking...your Lisp /is/ rusty.."
>>
>>:) No, seriously, is that all you can come up with?
>
>
> Interestingly, the SECOND lisper to prove himself unable to read the
> very text he's quoting. Reread carefully, *USE THE ***SINGLE***
> CHARACTER* ... *AS AN ORDINARY IDENTIFIER*. What makes you read a
> ``PART OF'' that I had never written? You've shown how to use the
> characters as *PART* of an identifier [[and I believe it couldn't be the
> very start]], and you appear to believe that this somehow refutes my
> assertion?
The function name here:
(|(| "Boy, your Lisp is rusty")
-> Boy, your Lisp is rusty.
...is exactly one (1) character long.
(length (symbol-name'|(|) -> 1
Why? (symbol-name '|(|) -> "(" (No, the "s are not part of the name!)
If you want to argue about that, I will have to bring up the Lisp
readtable. Or did you forget that, too?
:)
kenny
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