[plt-scheme] Paren Paralysis Sufferers Unite

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 2:33 AM,  <hendrik at topoi.pooq.com> wrote:
>> I think Lisp badly needs simpls syntactic schemes to reduce the number
>> of parntheses and make parentheses-matching visualy easier.  But every
>> proposal I've seen or made gets shouted down with complaints of "We've
>> learned to count parentheses -- Why can't you?"

Random points:

1. Some of the more recent Lisp-like languages (Clojure, Arc, Newlisp
perhaps) have syntax with reduced number of parens.  IIRC let in
Clojure is

(let (var val ...) expr ...)

rather than Scheme's

(let ([var val] ...) expr ...)

If you like this you can easily experiment with different forms using
PLT's #lang features.

2. I use lots of pattern matching and internal defines to avoid right
creep in my code

3. Making macros work with a true infix syntax is an open problem, I believe.

That's about all I have to say on this topic. Hope that's of some
interest to someone.

N.