🚀 go-pugleaf

In article  <GATELEY.91Jun25134644@gefion.rice.edu> John Gateley writes:
]
]I mean that syntax is relatively unimportant.

How can you say that syntax is unimportant when such a huge percentage
of people who try lisp or scheme are turned off by the syntax?  It is
certainly important to them.  It is a hindrance to the goal of getting
more people to use the language, and it is a distraction for many
people trying to use the language.  Just because it isn't a problem
for _you_ doesn't mean that it isn't a problem.

Any language feature that is unpalatable to large numbers of people is
a misfeature.  And calling it "relatively unimportant" isn't going to
make it any less important to the people who are bothered by it.  If
you don't think a lot of people are seriously bothered by lisp syntax
then you are mistaken.

By the way, fancy editors may make it easier to balance parens when
writing lisp, but they don't help much in reading it.
--
					David Gudeman
gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
noao!arizona!gudeman