From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Casting as wide a net as possible Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 20:48:05 +0100 Message-ID: <87bn9yt79m.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1449776895 555 80.91.229.3 (10 Dec 2015 19:48:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 19:48:15 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Emacs developers , John Yates To: Drew Adams Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Dec 10 20:48:13 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1a77CF-00029H-JR for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Dec 2015 20:48:11 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:44142 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1a77CE-0005RF-VG for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Dec 2015 14:48:10 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:58509) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1a77CB-0005R8-9p for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Dec 2015 14:48:08 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1a77CA-0004lI-BH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 10 Dec 2015 14:48:07 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:56656) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1a77CA-0004lE-89; Thu, 10 Dec 2015 14:48:06 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:42242 helo=lola) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1a77C9-0005dc-MI; Thu, 10 Dec 2015 14:48:05 -0500 Original-Received: by lola (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 39DFCDF4FA; Thu, 10 Dec 2015 20:48:05 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: (John Wiegley's message of "Thu, 10 Dec 2015 11:02:06 -0800") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:196052 Archived-At: John Wiegley writes: >>>>>> Drew Adams writes: > >> My only point is that Lisp features really do make Emacs what it is. To >> point out what Emacs is necessarily means pointing out some of those >> features (IMO). > > I agree. The things that make Emacs great: > > 1. Highly consistent syntax. Lisp does not have a program syntax. Its data structures have a fairly primitive read syntax, and you write down your parse trees in that syntax. That's what makes people hate reading Lisp code (since code is expressed only in terms of lists, the punctuation is not useful for helping humans parse the input, letting part of their trained pattern recognition in the context of reading natural language go waste). It's also what makes programmatic manipulation of Lisp code including macro programming quite more powerful and structure-preserving than macro programming in C or other languages. It's a tradeoff, and a good tradeoff at that, but I consider it silly to try selling the downside of the tradeoff as an advantage. The upside is worth it without smokescreen. -- David Kastrup