How did Ruby and Python prevent fragmentation while ML and Lisp did not?

Re:How did Ruby and Python prevent fragmentation while ML an... by rpearl on Sunday May 06, 2012 @01:28PM (#3935643)

I am dubious of this assertion. The original 1960 paper "Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine" introduces S-expressions and M-expressions as explicit entities (not as some abstract syntax, but as a literal syntax that people were able to write down). Now, M-expressions never really got used because everyone just used S-expressions, since they were simpler.

Do you have some citation about how he left implementation of syntax as an exercise? I'd be interested to see that.

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Re:How did Ruby and Python prevent fragmentation while ML an... by chc on Monday May 07, 2012 @12:20AM (#3937572)

I think he's kind of close, at least in that it was not meant to be written as S-expressions. AFAIK, the M-expressions were meant to be the main syntax. The very early Lisp docs I've seen were all written in M-expressions, with S-expressions taking the lead something like a decade later. (This was all decades before my time, so it's possible this is sampling bias, but I don't think so.)

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