Lisp in Small Pieces: Table of Contents and Code

Re:Lisp in Small Pieces: Table of Contents and Code by klibertp on Thursday November 13, 2014 @09:01AM (#8601501)

> The one feature that really differentiates Lisp from other languages is its macro system.

That's not exactly true. There are many languages, both old and new, which provide macro systems comparable to defmacro and/or syntax-rules. Dylan, Nimrod, Julia and Elixir come to mind.

I personally don't think there's one feature which makes lisps this great. It's really the whole experience, from syntax to repls to tools and so on.

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Re:Lisp in Small Pieces: Table of Contents and Code by pmoriarty on Thursday November 13, 2014 @09:38AM (#8601680)

The counterargument has been that while other languages may provide powerful macro systems, they're not as easy to use, nor are they homoiconic.

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Re:Lisp in Small Pieces: Table of Contents and Code by klibertp on Thursday November 13, 2014 @11:26AM (#8602353)

That's not quite true either. Julia, Prolog, Io are homoiconic, for example. Ease of use is subjective, but most AST based macro systems work in the same way defmacro does, using quote and unquote. Then there's Scheme and syntax-rules, which are (arguably) even easier to get right (not necessarily to use) and which don't even need homoiconicity.

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