Re: Floating hats

[Kent M. Pitman <KMP at MIT-MC>]

    Date: 26 January 1981 00:19-EST
    From: Alan Bawden <ALAN>
    To:   GJC, MOON, LISP-FORUM
    Re:   George, take a walk until your hat floats.

        Date: 25 January 1981 23:29-EST
        From: George J. Carrette <GJC at MIT-MC>

        ... Shouldn't that info ... at least be lisp readable in the file? ...

    ... Some files start out with a line saying "-*-Mode:Text-*-", should that
    be "lisp readable"? ...
-----
I'll argue that it should be. I am a firm believer that in spite of "#" and
readmacro characters and format ~mumbles and loop, the thing that makes lisp
win is that that it really has a simple syntax. the parser needed for vanilla
lisp syntax is about the simplist you could devise. Further, many non-lispy
languages have support for grokking lisp syntax -- eg, Teco and Midas. How 
many can boast of similar support for an algolesque syntax like -*-Mode:Text-*-
-- not even Algol itself ... So I think you have to agree that George's
argument is not so far out of line as you might have originally felt.

Fredkin, in introducing Lisp to 6.034 when I took it a few years back, claimed
that one of the advantages of lisp was that it was `syntax free' ... I claim
that arguing for Lispy notation is just arguing for syntaxlessness and is 
reasonable.

-kmp