Re: S-expressions

> We should avoid the mistakes of the past. My impression was
> that Pragmatic should be a language for the masses and not
> to prove how unreadable a language can be by design ;-)

	That is why the current design (PCL) spcifically
does not allow you to use this type of notation outside of macros.
Namely at the programmer level all it does is expand syntatical macros
(the only semantic/syntactical limit on macros yoou can not use the # in any
resulting code [I don't know of any paradigms that whould require it though]).

> The point is that you are arguing "A minority of people
> are comfortable with the Lisp syntax. Let's make everyone
> else suffer!"

	Even though PCL is somewhat Lisp like I personally ***HATE***
lisp semantics the only place they have is to define user level semantics
not define an actual useful language... i.e. Lisp like languages are ment to make
languages not write production code in.

> I can understand that being part of a minority (which feels
> that they are doing things better than everyone else) is a
> pain; I've been an Amiga user and I felt the same. We had
> proper multitasking and multimedia before everyone else knew
> what that was.

	Except unix ;-)

> But in the end, if you want to sell something (even for free),
> then you must produce something that the customer *wants*.
> The customer is used to infix syntax so infix he wants and
> infix he gets.

	What the programmer wants in this case is a way to mix
and match paradigms not be locked into one way of doing stuff this
is why PCL only works at the macro level not the actual production
coding level.

> > > - Recursive structures in the code confuse people. Many people
> > >   don't understand how quicksort works and that's one of
> > >   the most simple sorting algorithms.

	The only purpose recursion has for the most part is to start from
a high level view and work from the outside in... this only works for highly
structured tasks like compilors.

> > Make a tool designed for an idiot and only an idiot will want to use
> > it.
> 
> Well, everyone can make things complicated but it takes a genius
> to make them simple. If we can't design a better language than
> all those which already exist, then why bother the world with
> another (designed) failure?

	Simplisity comes from allowing easy hidding of complexity.  Properally
done PCL does this in the majority of cases (if not all unless your implimenting
a new paradidm/meta-paradigm (dsl)).

	--Aryeh

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