Hallo, On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 10:08 AM, Dave Bayer <bayer@cpw.math.columbia.edu> wrote:
Read "Coders at Work": The most reasoned, pragmatic objection to Lisp family language syntax over e.g. Haskell syntax is simply code density. This consideration gets up-ended if one's primary constraint is entering code through a novel, limited bandwidth interface. Lisp's parentheses are an historical artifact tied to an input method that iPad-like devices will help supplant; even on keyboards one can get rid of most parentheses by the Haskell $ op and resolving the "missing outline levels" issue. One actually thinks in syntax trees, and could enter them directly as trees through a gesture-based editor that understood the grammar, your choices and their probabilities.
Have you ever tried the paredit minor mode for Emacs? It's a minor mode that keeps parentheses balanced no matter what, with several commands like slurp the next or previous s-expression, or barf the next or previous s-expression. Bound to gestures, these commands would make editing Lisp code a no-brainer in touch-oriented devices. I know everybody is tired of hearing this, but Lisp's syntactic power comes from its simplicity and uniformity. Cheers, -- -alex http://www.ventonegro.org/