On Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 1:35 PM, Louis-Guillaume Gagnon <
louis.guillaume.gagnon_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
> 2013/6/29 Andrew Gwozdziewycz <web_AT_apgwoz.com>:
> > I don't speak for the suckless community, but despite the fact that I
> love
> > it, Lisp is complicated and not very simple at all
>
> It's worth noting that the R5RS scheme standard is only ~50 pages
> long: http://www.schemers.org/Documents/Standards/R5RS/
> In comparison, the C99 standard is ~550 pages. I would say that the
> scheme dialect is pretty simple.
>
>
50 pages of spec does not a simple dialect make. Sure, it defines a tiny
core,
but it demands fully hygienic macros (recommending `syntax-rules`) and
continuations.
`syntax-rules` macros don't allow you to capture bindings at all, which is
impractical enough that R6RS (and many implementations) adopted
`syntax-case`
(and subsequently implemented `syntax-rules` in terms of it), which is just
painful and complex to use. `syntax-rules` macros, while declarative and
arguably
more maintainable, is actually it's own language, and breaks you out of the
"Scheme" flow.
Don't even get me started on the "simplicity" of continuations. There's a
trove
of literature on them which refutes that.
--
http://apgwoz.com
Received on Sun Jun 30 2013 - 14:14:07 CEST