I would like to use Common Lisp as a shell prompt, and at some point
I'd like to load up Common Lisp as the operating system for a
computer; thus, I was looking for something that would allow me to
create lists by indentation. As I searched, I stumbled on
"sweet-expressions"...and so far, I like what I see! (Up to this
point, my only concern was to do indentation; at the time, I wasn't
even worried about infix notation).
In my reading, however, I've learned that sweet-expressions aren't yet
available for Common Lisp, except for the infix operator. In the
sweet-expr tutorial, if I remember correctly, you stated that the
reader would probably have to be re-written. I would like to do this,
even though I am new to Lisp.
To do this, though, I have two questions: where can I find an
explanation of what the current reader does, so that I could make sure
it does what it's supposed to do? And when will I find the time to do
this? (I know you don't have an answer to the second question, but if
you could e-mail me the spare minutes you find here and there, it
would be appreciated :-).
In the meantime, I will be working on something in Python and XML;
I'll likely try to use sweet-expressions to at least simplify some of
the XMLish stuff I'm working on.
I also wanted to chide you a little bit: in a certain e-mail
discussion, you stated that prefix notation is unnatural, when
actually, it's perfectly natural: consider f(x, y)!
Having said that, I also think that the spite that the Common Lisp
community seems to have towards things like sweet-expressions is a bit
unfounded, for three reasons:
1. Common Lisp *already* has an infix operator:
(1 . 2)
2. Common Lisp has at least *three* functions written as standard f(x
y) notation:
'(a b c) => (quote (a b c))
`(a ,b c) => (backquote (a (evaluate b) c))
3. In exactly the same way that C uses indentation to indicate
structure, Common Lisp does as well; thus, just as it makes sense to
remove the brackets from C to get Python, it makes sense to remove the
parentheses from Common Lisp.
So long as your goal is to make the results 100% compatible with
s-exprs, I can see no reason why these types of changes shouldn't be
generalized. Or should we insist that quote be used as (' (a b c))
instead, for consistency?
Having said that, I think I'll avoid the wrath of the Common Lisp
community and just call my new language "Treehouse" (because the
fundamental datastructure is trees :-) and rename sweet-expressions as
"tree expressions" or t-exprs for short. (Technically, my ultimate
goal would be to create a "simplified" Common Lisp, with a simple
core, separate standard libraries for things that would bring the
language up to the CLtL standard, and "declared" standard libraries
for things like sockets, files, etc...so I'd be justified in calling
it by a new name--if I ever get around to it! :-).
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