> Because first-class functions aren't “code as data”. When you have a first-class function, the only thing you can do with it is call it. If it were a data structure, you could analyze its constituent parts. There are…
> What I mean by “code in an object language is data in the metalanguage” is that, in the metalanguage in which you're writing a compiler or interpreter, the object language program that you're processing is represented…
Well, the key part is gracefully. Lots of languages can manipulate code as data, but so for for me only in homoiconic languages does it end up feeling graceful for a while (although as I noted, it stops feeling graceful…
> You should check out Racket's macro system. It's a lot more sophisticated than Common Lisp's. Common Lisp macros are to C (e.g., gensym is a macro-level malloc, you need to manually destructure S-expressions, etc.) as…
Okay, I've spent a lot of time writing Common Lisp and even more time reading about Common Lisp, and to be honest, I'm just a little tired of the cult around it. People who know it well gloat about how great Common Lisp…
> Because first-class functions aren't “code as data”. When you have a first-class function, the only thing you can do with it is call it. If it were a data structure, you could analyze its constituent parts. There are…
> What I mean by “code in an object language is data in the metalanguage” is that, in the metalanguage in which you're writing a compiler or interpreter, the object language program that you're processing is represented…
Well, the key part is gracefully. Lots of languages can manipulate code as data, but so for for me only in homoiconic languages does it end up feeling graceful for a while (although as I noted, it stops feeling graceful…
> You should check out Racket's macro system. It's a lot more sophisticated than Common Lisp's. Common Lisp macros are to C (e.g., gensym is a macro-level malloc, you need to manually destructure S-expressions, etc.) as…
Okay, I've spent a lot of time writing Common Lisp and even more time reading about Common Lisp, and to be honest, I'm just a little tired of the cult around it. People who know it well gloat about how great Common Lisp…