"C-like" syntax for Lisp in less than 100 lines of code
in [Lisp]
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From: Jorge Gajon on 23 Apr 2010 11:13 On 2010-04-22, Peter Keller <psilord(a)merlin.cs.wisc.edu> wrote: > I am a staunch vim user, to say the least. However, after patches I > was giving back to various lisp projects were rejected with the reason > "format it in SLIME or else". I bit the bullet and simply learned emacs > for my Lisp IDE. I'm happy I did this. > Hi Peter, I'm an avid Vim user as well, and I've been using "Limp" with a few modifications�. I've been playing a little bit with Emacs and SLIME, and I can clearly see that the Emacs platform is much more powerful and that there's nothing like SLIME available to VIM. However, I've been hesitant to completely immerse myself into Emacs mainly because I'm afraid that I will spend endless hours learning and customizing it, without gaining a significant advantage over Vim. /"But you said Emacs is more powerful."/ Yes but I don't need a tetris game, or GNUS, or a web browser, or an ultra super duper grand unified debugger (as cool as it is.) Vim, as a platform, may not be as powerful as Emacs, but it is powerful nonetheless, and I wonder if is it worth the effort to start from scratch with Emacs. On the other hand, I truly believe the Vi editing model is superior. Have you tried Vimpulse? I've tried viper-mode but it is not enough. Peter, you say that you are happy you bit the bullet. Care to expand that thought?. Thank you. � In this link you can see the modifications I've done to Limp: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2545893/turn-off-the-highlight-feature-in-the-limp/
From: Peter Keller on 21 Apr 2010 23:31 Rupert Swarbrick <rswarbrick(a)gmail.com> wrote: > [-- text/plain, encoding 7bit, charset: US-ASCII, 44 lines --] > > Peter Keller <psilord(a)merlin.cs.wisc.edu> writes: > > <snip... the real point of the post: sorry!> > >> I hacked my emacs/slime syntax coloring to be very detailed and show many >> different classes of semantic ideas: comments, ANSI functions, macros, >> special forms, type names, special variables, constants, etc, etc, etc to >> all be color coordinated with each other using color theory to give me >> insight into what I've written--and whether I'm writing it correctly! >> >> The most important change I did was to make the parenthsis color nearly >> the same as the background color. In a sense they vanish and I'm left >> with the spatial blocks as an indention structure, which works just >> fine. I can always resolve a specific parenthesis from the background if >> I have to to disambiguate a form. Usually, if I screwed something up, >> the indention level of my codebase goes wrong and it is pretty easy >> to find where I missed a parenthsis. > > This sounds interesting to play with: did you stick the theming changes > you made into a file you could pass around? I've been lazy and tend to > stick with either the default emacs theme or a low contrast one called > zenburn. But it would be really interesting to have a look at one > designed by someone for use writing lisp! I wrote up an extended blog post of the usenet post I wrote about indention at: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~psilord/blog/28.html That post includes the color reasoning and emacs lisp which implements the highlighter. I have a couple screenshots you can see of it. The emacs lisp, is um, special, and by that I mean terrible. I don't know emacs lisp and I'm surprised the Earth didn't implode from the sucking sound of my .emacs file. I have some other lisp related stuff in the lisp category on my blog, but I don't have too many posts in that category yet. I just started writing lisp seriously 6 months ago or so. > About the actual point of your post, it's unfortunate that "modern" text > editors (gedit, kate, notepad++ etc.) lack the extensibility to turn > them into useful platforms for writing lisp. And your point about > indentation is exactly what's required (and difficult!). I am a staunch vim user, to say the least. However, after patches I was giving back to various lisp projects were rejected with the reason "format it in SLIME or else". I bit the bullet and simply learned emacs for my Lisp IDE. I'm happy I did this. Later, -pete
From: Thibault Langlois on 22 Apr 2010 04:10 On Apr 21, 3:04 pm, Pillsy <pillsb...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Apr 20, 11:43 pm, Günther Thomsen <guenth...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > [...] > > > This comes up every now and then. I'm not sure whether this > > parenthesis-paralysis is actually a real problem or an often-repeated > > myth. > > I'm increasingly convinced that parentheses are the fundamental reason > that Lisp isn't a lot more popular than it is. Syntax really matters I'm on the opposite side. I wish I had a sexp based syntax language with the semantics of ANSIC. If it was implemented in CL I would be able to mix them. A function defined in the ANSIC package would obey the C semantics. When compiling the CL compiler would automatically generate C syntax equivalent, call gcc and generate the binding code. If this approach was available for other languages (Java, javascript, shell etc), I would have solved the syntax "problem" once for all. I would never have to learn a different syntax for a new language. Sexp is no-syntax it is so better than syntax A, B or C. What matters is the semantic of the langugage. I am convinced that the ideal situation described here would be actually better to teach programming. The instructor could actually focus on the semantics of the language not on the syntax. Let's be crazy ! If I was a dictator I would require that every programming language should offer a CL-compatible sexp based syntax :-) > to people, and the reasons it matters are rooted in subjective > judgements about "prettiness" or "ease of reading". It so happens that > a lot of programmers hate the parentheses for subjective reasons that > simply don't apply to Lisp users because if they applied, we wouldn't > be Lisp users. > > > In any case, Dylan did away with the prefix-syntax and that wasn't > > enough to make it popular (but of course, there might have been other > > reasons or no reasons why it failed to gain popularity). > > Sure, but it was pretty much not marketed. Counterfactuals are tough, > but I've always thought that if Dylan, rather than Java, had been the > language that Sun decided to throw all that weight behind, today > everybody would be complaining about it because their boss makes them > use it. > [...] > > > Not sure about that. But why not start with a good book and classic > > Scheme? > > I think Common Lisp is an easier language to learn than Scheme, with > its richer set of imperative constructs and much better support for IO > and object orientation. Learning Scheme involves drinking a bunch of > Kool-Aid, and the good Scheme books are at least as much about selling > you that Kool-Aid as they are about teaching you a new language. > > Cheers, > Pillsy
From: Tamas K Papp on 22 Apr 2010 04:37 On Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:10:17 -0700, Thibault Langlois wrote: > On Apr 21, 3:04 pm, Pillsy <pillsb...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> On Apr 20, 11:43 pm, Günther Thomsen <guenth...(a)gmail.com> wrote: [...] >> >> > This comes up every now and then. I'm not sure whether this >> > parenthesis-paralysis is actually a real problem or an often-repeated >> > myth. >> >> I'm increasingly convinced that parentheses are the fundamental reason >> that Lisp isn't a lot more popular than it is. Syntax really matters > > I'm on the opposite side. I wish I had a sexp based syntax language with > the semantics of ANSIC. > If it was implemented in CL I would be able to mix them. A function > defined in the ANSIC package would obey the C semantics. When compiling > the CL compiler would automatically generate C syntax equivalent, call > gcc and generate the binding code. If this approach was available for Maybe you could try writing it and post here. It should not be too hard I guess, C is a small language. I had similar intentions with a subset of Fortran, but never got around to it. Tamas
From: Nick Keighley on 22 Apr 2010 05:27
On 21 Apr, 05:47, Tamas K Papp <tkp...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:43:14 -0700, Günther Thomsen wrote: > > On Apr 19, 11:19 am, Tamas K Papp <tkp...(a)gmail.com> wrote: [..] > >> S-expressions (and macros) are > >> what makes Lisp powerful. With a C-like syntax, Lisp is not much more > >> powerful than a C-like language (with a few nice features thrown in, eg > >> Blub OO systems rarely ever come close to CLOS). The greatest help one > >> can give to newbies is help with learning CL as it is. I genuinely think the parentheses *are* a barrier. I was put off Lisp for years by the Lots of Irritating Silly Parentheses. (and then cam back to lisp-like languages because I kept reading what a great language it was and how it would change the way you thunk). OTH I don't think hiding them helps. You've just got to grasp the nettle. An editor that can count helps a /lot/. > > Not sure about that. But why not start with a good book and classic > > Scheme? Once through that, the student surely will be able to deal with > > those parenthesis and can move on to CL, if so inclined. > > I started with Scheme instead of CL, thinking that since it claims to > be "smaller", me too. I was also hoping to embed scheme. > it would be easier to learn. The language seemed very > clever and abstract, but I felt that it required to force my thinking > into particular patterns/solutions, which were not natural to me (eg > the books I have used insisted on doing pretty much everything with > tail recursion). I persevered. I think being more comfortable with recursion has been a help. Though scheme's named-let doesn't really look like recursion... > Based on Scheme, I formed the impression that Lisp > is a clever but impractical programming language (I didn't know much > about CL). Fortunately for me, a year later I decided to give CL a > chance, and I was hooked instantly. > > Based on my experience, I would be wary of recommending Scheme to > newbies. Also, I think that the two communities are a bit different. > I have yet to encounter a book for Scheme that is comparable to PCL. > Most books for Scheme I have seen seem to care little about the > language per se, and try to expand on a particular theme instead (eg > how to do everything using recursion, the joys of call/cc). which book is that! "The Joy Of call/cc" is exactly what I've been looking for (that and "So Which Bloody Macro Scheme Should I Use Then?". Is there a "Hygenic Macros For Dummies"?) > Macros > are not really emphasized (eg in the Dybvig book, they get a very thin > chapter towards the end, which is a puzzle). AOL -- Scheme wanting to be considered a Lisp is like Robert E. Lee wanting to keep his commission in the United States Army. |