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prog


"Lisp has no syntax"

1 2021-10-10 14:49

Why do some Lisp enthusiasts like to make the dubious claim that "Lisp has no syntax"?

It is clear Lisps are chock-full of syntax. Examples for Common Lisp:

* Plenty of parentheses.
* Loop macros
* Format string specifications
* Reader macros: #', #:, #=, etc.
* Examples of invalid syntax, demonstrating that Lisp does have syntax:
* (if 1 2 3 4)
* (loop while)
* (defun f (&key &key))
* (let ((x 1)) x (declare (fixnum x)))
* etc, etc, etc.

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