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You're right. Lisp syntax makes the totally wrong tradeoff of being slightly easier to parse for the machine, and much harder for the human. An eloquent name fo
by LessDmesg 7y ago
You're right. Lisp syntax makes the totally wrong tradeoff of being slightly easier to parse for the machine, and much harder for the human. An eloquent name for it is that Lisp fails the squint test https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/the_language_squint_test.html https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/the_language_squin...
- lkschubert8 7y agoI have to say applying the squint test to language design seems immensely confused to me.
- argv_empty 7y agoThe syntactic structure of both "code" snippets seems equally clear (or maybe "uncertain in the same ways") to me, though my understanding might be a bit off if the author has biased the comparison by following generally accepted use of whitespace with one language and not the other. This looks like another instance of slapping a pseudo-scientific veneer on top of conclusions driven more by untrained gut feeling in order to pretend one's subjective impressions are firmly grounded in objective reality. It's like the phrenology of programming languages.