On Fri, Jan 11, 2008 at 10:33:38PM -0800, Andrew Lentvorski wrote: > "Functions and data are the same thing" is not the win, really, in spite > of the fact that is how the Lisper describe it. > > The win is that Lisp syntax is extremely minimal. Therefore, when you > create something which does "source code transformation" ... aka macro > system ... you don't have this huge grammar with lots of cases that you > have to account for.
Yes thanks. Well put. The win is not that Lisp has some inherent capabilities not present in other languages but just that is makes certain things easier. Even assembly could modify itself at run time. So in a sense "macros" (or at least self modifying code) even predates Fortran and Lisp! Chris -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
