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Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

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Re: Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

#51

Post by lispm »

Zak wrote: post #3

Somebody has invented a more conventional-looking syntax for Lisp every couple years since John McCarthy first suggested M-expressions. Nobody[0] has ever cared enough to use any of them. People who "get" Lisp get over any aversion to the syntax, and usually even come to appreciate it. People who can't get over the syntax never actually get Lisp. [0] For large values of nobody

The code as data as code as data ... idea is a feature of core Lisp. Not everybody 'gets' this feature and not everybody 'needs' this feature.

Other than that there have been many conventional syntaxes derived from Lisp: Logo, ML, Dylan, ...

What most of these don't have is the code as data as code as data ... support or at least it gets more difficult.

If the representation via s-expressions is not needed, other syntaxes are not that difficult to implement...

Re: Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

#52

Post by arethuza »

derefr wrote: post #7
Zak wrote: post #3

Somebody has invented a more conventional-looking syntax for Lisp every couple years since John McCarthy first suggested M-expressions. Nobody[0] has ever cared enough to use any of them. People who "get" Lisp get over any aversion to the syntax, and usually even come to appreciate it. People who can't get over the syntax never actually get Lisp. [0] For large values of nobody

Because the people who "get" Lisp are almost always theoreticians who know what they want to code before they code it. They use Lisp as a write-only language. Meanwhile, working programmers avoid it, because it's very hard to step into someone else's Lisp codebase and understand it (and not just because of the fact that anything could mean anything due to macros—code is already visually indistinguishable from data wi…

Your "comparative usability study" is like sending someone with general familiarity of European languages to China and them concluding that Chinese is a "worse" language because it doesn't look like anything they have seen before.

Most languages that have syntactic structures descended from Algol do all look the same so of course they are easier for someone with experience of one language in the family to understand than something else from a completely different heritage.

I did a lot of programming in Common Lisp, so Scheme looks fairly sensible. Similarly I did a fair bit in PostScript - so I can sort of work out what is going on with Forth and other RPN languages.

As for understanding large codebases in Lisp written by other people - a good Common Lisp environment (we used LispWorks) is about the best tool to dig around in other peoples code (largely because of the excellent REPL).

Re: Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

#53

Post by cageface »

Zak wrote: post #3

Somebody has invented a more conventional-looking syntax for Lisp every couple years since John McCarthy first suggested M-expressions. Nobody[0] has ever cared enough to use any of them. People who "get" Lisp get over any aversion to the syntax, and usually even come to appreciate it. People who can't get over the syntax never actually get Lisp. [0] For large values of nobody

People who can't get over the syntax never actually get Lisp.

So tired of hearing this from Lisp zealots. There are actually many intelligent people that understand lisp but don't think the plusses of the syntax outweigh the minuses.

Re: Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

#54

Post by gjm11 »

derefr wrote: post #24
alec wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really isn't. Replace "Lisp" with "Perl" and "theoreticians" with something evocative of the stereotypical Perl programmer and you have the exact same nonsubstantive rant that adds little to the discussion of what a good programming language should look like or why a particular one is bad. I've been a "working programmer" who happens to write Common Lisp for a few years. Common Lisp is a programming language like…

> Common Lisp is a programming language like any other: people who write good code in other languages can write good code in Common Lisp, and people who write bad code can make everyone's life just as miserable. We're not talking about the extremes, here, though; we're talking about completely average code, written by completely average programmers, and the comparative number of extra milliseconds it takes these prog…

Greenspun's rule refers specifically to Common Lisp ("... of half of Common Lisp.") and there's no way that "half of Common Lisp", even with a healthy dose of hyperbole, can refer to the feature-intersection of all popularly-implemented Lisps, nor to anything "very pure".

Re: Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

#55

Post by cmiles74 »

cageface wrote: post #53
Zak wrote: post #3

Somebody has invented a more conventional-looking syntax for Lisp every couple years since John McCarthy first suggested M-expressions. Nobody[0] has ever cared enough to use any of them. People who "get" Lisp get over any aversion to the syntax, and usually even come to appreciate it. People who can't get over the syntax never actually get Lisp. [0] For large values of nobody

People who can't get over the syntax never actually get Lisp. So tired of hearing this from Lisp zealots. There are actually many intelligent people that understand lisp but don't think the plusses of the syntax outweigh the minuses.

I took this as meaning that the people who are really interested in reading and writing Lisp code eventually get over or even grow to appreciate s-expressions. Given that's the case, who are these people that would like to read and write Lisp but can't get past the parenthesis? Is there really a market for an alternate Lisp syntax?

I think there probably is not. As you point out, there are many solid language choices that do not have Lispy syntax and a lot of very smart people being very productive with them. If the syntax bothers a person enough, this alternate syntax probably won't help.

Re: Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

#56

Post by loup-vaillant »

Zak wrote: post #3

Somebody has invented a more conventional-looking syntax for Lisp every couple years since John McCarthy first suggested M-expressions. Nobody[0] has ever cared enough to use any of them. People who "get" Lisp get over any aversion to the syntax, and usually even come to appreciate it. People who can't get over the syntax never actually get Lisp. [0] For large values of nobody

People who actually get Lisp understand that S-expressions and surface syntax⁰ are orthogonal. "Ubiquitous parentheses" are one way to represent them. Sweet expressions are another.

There is zero Lisper on this planet that think about "Ubiquitous parentheses" as the best possible syntax. Not even the seemingly fanatics of Lisp's "regular syntax". Proof: no one in her right mind (not even you) would prefer (quote X), or even (' x) over 'x. 'x is an irregularity that makes the whole thing terser, while using up less cognitive power. In other words, it's better.

Now why stop there? You could try and remove more parentheses by using a tab syntax, or introduce a few other irregularities, or both. There's a good chance that we could come up with something better than the currently widely accepted surface syntax.

Conclusion: it's perfectly possible to get Lisp and not surrender to it's standard syntax, because it may just not be the best. Besides, I'd think twice before suggesting that David A. Wheeler don't deeply understand Lisp.

Now, knowing that the standard syntax is the only widely used one, one of course have to get over it to have a chance of understanding lisp. But if you only meant that, You hardly said anything at all¹.

[0] When you wrote "syntax", I assumed you talked about surface syntax.

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/jb/applause_lights/

Edit (addendum): By the way, I'm surprised this issue isn't settled yet by structure editing. With a structure editor, programmers could choose the surface syntax they like independently of the underlying S-expression tree. (Incidentally, this could apply to any language, though with more difficulties.)

Re: Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

#57

Post by Zak »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #56
Zak wrote: post #3

Somebody has invented a more conventional-looking syntax for Lisp every couple years since John McCarthy first suggested M-expressions. Nobody[0] has ever cared enough to use any of them. People who "get" Lisp get over any aversion to the syntax, and usually even come to appreciate it. People who can't get over the syntax never actually get Lisp. [0] For large values of nobody

People who actually get Lisp understand that S-expressions and surface syntax⁰ are orthogonal. "Ubiquitous parentheses" are one way to represent them. Sweet expressions are another. There is zero Lisper on this planet that think about "Ubiquitous parentheses" as the best possible syntax. Not even the seemingly fanatics of Lisp's "regular syntax". Proof: no one in her right mind (not even you) would prefer (quote X),…

I'm sure David A. Wheeler gets Lisp - probably more than most of us. The creators of alternate syntax proposals almost always do, but they're usually not the intended market for their own proposals. Alternate syntax proposals are almost always written by Lisp proponents who want to make Lisp more accessible to others.

In the article, Wheeler says the goal is to "provide a better notation that others can read". To quote pg: "Historically, languages designed for other people to use have been bad"[0]. I've found that to be true with most alternate syntax proposals I've read, including this one. I do not find it as readable as the original Scheme, nor is it as readable as Python.

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/javacover.html

Re: Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

#58

Post by ses »

Well from the perspective of a programmer that doesn't know lisp, and has been put off in the past due to its syntax: I find this dialect much more appealing.

Nested round brackets are pretty horrible to read / parse.

Whether it destroys the essence of what lisp is all about is another matter, but I suspect it doesn't at all.

Re: Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

#59

Post by raganwald »

joe_the_user wrote: post #21
raganwald wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A comparative usability study on a language is very simple to perform: you basically print out some code samples, let people with no experience in the language (but general programming experience) read them for a set time period, and then evaluate their comprehension. That is just one axis of usability, optimizing for comprehension by someone unfamiliar with the language. Usability is also optimizing for the experien…

I have to say I'm not impressed by the link. Intuitiveness is indeed highly correlated to previous human experience. But aside from pre-existing interfaces, an interface designer has available the whole of an average person's real world experience - the mouse is intuitive because it mimics a person's experience of moving a physical object - it doesn't mimic exactly but closely enough that a person can use their exist…

Of course familiarity by way of similarity to previous experience is a valid question for debate. My claim is that it is just one of several considerations for judging the merit of an overall design, and not necessarily the most important one.

Re: Sweet-expressions: A readable format for Lisp-like languages

#60

Post by merijnv »

cmiles74 wrote: post #55
cageface wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who can't get over the syntax never actually get Lisp. So tired of hearing this from Lisp zealots. There are actually many intelligent people that understand lisp but don't think the plusses of the syntax outweigh the minuses.

I took this as meaning that the people who are really interested in reading and writing Lisp code eventually get over or even grow to appreciate s-expressions. Given that's the case, who are these people that would like to read and write Lisp but can't get past the parenthesis? Is there really a market for an alternate Lisp syntax? I think there probably is not. As you point out, there are many solid language choices…

I agree with the grandparent that (contrary to the vague group of Lisp zealots mentioned) understand Lisp and hate the parentheses. On the other hand I also agree with you that there is probably not market/interest in this group of people to learn "Lisp with an alternate syntax".

As someone with an interest in programming languages I do feel I have reasonable grasp on Lisp's s-expressions, but I dislike the parentheses syntax. However I don't think an alternate syntax would help me, most Lisp would still be parenthesis Lisp...

I think most of people like me instead flock to functional languages like Haskell. As I mentioned in an earlier Haskell discussion I think Lisp's macros are probably more powerful (in the sense that they can express more then Haskell code), but like a lot of Haskell coders I just don't agree with the Lispers that this (slight?) increase in expressibility is worth the loss of readable Haskell syntax.

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