Re: [Gnu-arch-users] OT: Lisp

[Andrew Suffield]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 06:33:52PM -0800, Joshua Haberman wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-11-19 at 18:04, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 05:38:16PM -0800, Joshua Haberman wrote:
> > > It also makes me think of Lisp as the
> > > anti-Perl: where Lisp has one syntax that all language features are
> > > mapped onto, Perl has a special syntax for everything (sometimes even
> > > two or three syntaxes for the same feature, as with quoting!)
> > 
> > Perl's syntax is actually infinitely mutable in all cases.
> 
> What does it mean to call a language's syntax "mutable?"

The language contains constructs for modifying its own syntax. This
means you can build your own syntax (this is not commonly useful for
non-trivial mutations, because it just makes the code harder to
maintain for the next person, but it does have its moments).

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
 `. `'                          |
   `-             -><-          |

signature.asc
Description: Digital signature