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A comment on How Lisp macros differ from static code-generation and metaprogramming. Parent comment

Re:How Lisp macros differ from static code-generation and me... by jfm3 on Wednesday January 26, 2011 @02:50PM (#2144774)
Even early stabs at x-bar theory indicate that natural languages are highly homoiconic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-bar_theory

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Re:How Lisp macros differ from static code-generation and me... by sedachv on Wednesday January 26, 2011 @03:47PM (#2145065)
Can you please explain more?
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Re:How Lisp macros differ from static code-generation and me... by jfm3 on Wednesday January 26, 2011 @05:04PM (#2145392)
Homoiconicity means program and data have identical representation. But after you Lisp for a while the boundary blurs entirely.

X-bar theory says that in all natural languages, Noun Phrases, Verb Phrases, and depending on who you read other types of phrases all have the same form; a single Head (which may be composite) and a Tail with zero or more elements. Never mind that they've just discovered S-expressions. The point is that in the natural language program:

    multiply the radius squared and pi
Both the data-like parts and the program-like parts share the same structure.
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