It makes Lisp and Scheme a lot more appealing, because the beginner learns a simple syntax in a short time, and that's all there is.

In my experience, people who think Lisp syntax is "simple" are either wizened gurus so lambda-hardened that they even speak in prefix notation, or have never actually tried to use Lisp.

Contrary to popular myth, Lisp has quite a lot of syntax. It just all looks the same. Sorry, but I don't know how anyone can think that

(defun foo (x y z) (bar (+ x y z)))

is easier for a beginner than e.g.

int foo(int x, int y, int z) {
    return bar(x + y + z);
}

[download]

just because it uses exclusively parentheses and spaces, instead of distinguishing between different concepts by using different characters. You still have to remember where you're supposed to put the parentheses, and because it all looks the same, it's less obvious when you get it wrong. (Remember that we're talking about beginners here.)

And that's without getting into the bits of Lisp syntax that don't use exclusively parentheses and spaces. Quick, should it be (list 'foo 'bar) or '(list 'foo 'bar), or maybe even `(*list* 'foo 'bar)? Hmm, maybe it should have been ,@(list `foo `bar), or do I mean #A(:list #'foo #'bar)...? Sure, it's obvious to anyone who knows Lisp that most of those examples are nonsensical, but to a beginner it's, well, a bunch of confusing syntax. You know... that thing that Lisp allegedly doesn't have.

In reply to Re^2: Perl as one's first programming language by Porculus
in thread Perl as one's first programming language by amarquis

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.