Re: Interpreted language(s) in the base

From: Bakul Shah <bakul_at_bitblocks.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:06:02 -0700
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:33:08 +0200 =?utf-8?Q?Dag-Erling_Sm=C3=B8rgrav?= <des_at_des.no>  wrote:
> "C. P. Ghost" <cpghost_at_cordula.ws> writes:
> > After all LISP-like syntax is *still* more common and prevalent
> > than Lua, e.g. in Elisp, guile, esh, scsh and a lot of other apps
> > that use it as a small language. So we can expect more users
> > to be at least partially familiar with it. And there *are* lightweight
> > MIT- or BSD-licensed scheme interpreters out there too:
> 
> Considering that the majority of people who might be interested in using
> this know *neither* Lisp *nor* Lua, my vote is for Lua, because people
> who are familiar with neither will be more open to learning Lua, which
> resembles other languages they already know, than Lisp, which doesn't.

[Couldn't resist responding but my last message on this tangent]
If you are "open to learning" a C like language, one can
provide a C like frontend syntax to most of Scheme & to a
degreee similar to lua.  Like C/Lua etc. Scheme is also a
block structured language.  Apart from syntax, the key
differences are:

- everything is an expression.
- variables are not typed (anything can be assigned to a var)
- functions can be anonymous, nested and returned from other functions
- symbols & lists are built-in unlike in C
- no built-in structs, unions or ptrs
- a very powerful macro facility
- support for continuations

ksm for instance implements a C like syntax.

See http://square.umin.ac.jp/hchang/ksm/ref/ksm_13.html

[Yes, I am aware of Dylan and what happened to it but still
 think this can be a useful effort]
Received on Fri Aug 20 2010 - 19:06:03 UTC

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