> > I think our target audience is non-lispers who're starting out with lisp.
It's really anyone who needs to write s-expressions and wants them to readable. Lispers are a target audience, too. People unwilling to consider change will, of course, not change. I actually understand the skepticism. There have been many readable efforts, which all failed. The *reason* they failed is because their developers didn't understand that any new S-expression notation has to be homoiconic, general, and support Lisp capabilities like macros. Old notations, while nifty, simply couldn't be widely useful in a Lisp. The difference is that I think we've figured out what the problems of older attempts were, so now we can avoid those mistakes. > > So far it seems sweet-exprs wouldn't really help this > > hypothetical user because he probably has to deal with an existing > > codebase that doesn't use sweet-exprs, because its devs are already > > fluent with parens-and-prefix, etc., etc. No problem. First of all, the formats are backwards-compatible under normal conditions, so you can "switch" readers and just keep working. In addition, I've already started on a reverse translator (though it doesn't do much yet). > > Have y'all considered a reverse translator that reads > > fully-parenthesized lisp or scheme and emits clean and clear > > parens-and-prefix-free code? Perhaps we should mirror the top 20 lisp > > projects in our readable style, sucking in new commits as they happen, > > and see if newcomers to lisp find our mirrors useful. Does this seem > > like a viable strategy? That's an interesting strategy. In addition, we could set up a little web service where people could upload or paste in traditional expressions, and get the pretty version in return. --- David A. Wheeler ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Readable-discuss mailing list Readable-discuss@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/readable-discuss
